Elon Musk Is Now a Trillionaire: What Just Happened with SpaceX (And Why It Matters to You).

SpaceX finally hit the stock market today, and it made Elon Musk the first person in history to be worth a trillion dollars.

The rocket company’s shares started trading at $150 and ended the day around $161, pushing SpaceX’s total value over $2.1 trillion. That makes it bigger than Musk’s other company, Tesla. Forbes now estimates Musk’s personal wealth at $1.1 trillion.

So why did SpaceX go public? Musk says he needs a mountain of cash to fund his biggest dreams: putting data centres in space, and eventually building a human colony on Mars. “Not just a few astronauts,” he said. “Literally you.”

But here’s the catch: SpaceX loses billions every year nearly $5 billion last year alone. Only its Starlink satellite internet business is profitable. Investors are essentially betting on Musk’s vision, not on current profits.

Demand for shares was insane about $350 billion wanted in, but only $75 billion was available. That’s why the price jumped.

Not everyone is celebrating. Oxfam called it a “dark day for global democracy,” pointing out that Musk now has more wealth than 3.8 billion people combined. And there’s political worry too: Sky News investigations found that Musk’s platform X amplifies right wing and extreme content, including in UK politics.

Still, markets are treating SpaceX like an AI bet as much as a space bet. And with OpenAI and Anthropic waiting to go public soon, this could be just the beginning of a new era of mega listings.

Whether you own shares or not, one person holding that much wealth and that much influence is something that affects everyone.