SpaceX listing could make Elon Musk the first trillionaire
SpaceX is set to list at a $1.77 trillion valuation, putting Elon Musk’s 42 percent stake near or above the trillion-dollar threshold.
By Daniel Okafor · Business Editor
3 min read
Elon Musk could become the world’s first trillionaire when SpaceX starts trading on the Nasdaq on Friday. The listing matters because Musk’s 42 percent holding in the company could push his paper wealth far beyond that of any living billionaire, according to figures cited by Al Jazeera.
SpaceX is set to debut with a valuation of $1.77 trillion, offering 555.6 million shares at $135 each, according to the company’s initial public offering terms cited by Al Jazeera. Estimates for Musk’s stake range from $743 billion to $866.5 billion, on top of wealth that Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index put at about $696 billion before the IPO announcement.
If the market supports that valuation through Friday’s trading, Musk would cross the trillion-dollar mark, according to Al Jazeera’s analysis. Bloomberg ranked him as the world’s richest person before the listing, ahead of Google co-founder Larry Page, whose fortune it put at $304 billion.
Oxfam, the UK charity, has used a daily-spending comparison to show the scale of a trillion dollars: spending $1 million a day would take 2,740 years to exhaust that sum. Measured against the US economy, Al Jazeera reported that a trillion-dollar fortune would equal roughly 3 percent of US gross domestic product.
Economic historians told Al Jazeera that Musk’s potential fortune would place him above many of the most famous private fortunes in American history. The MeasuringWorth Foundation estimates that John Jacob Astor’s wealth was about 1 percent of US GDP at his death in 1848, while Andrew Carnegie’s was about 0.5 percent in 1919 and John D. Rockefeller’s was about 1.5 percent in 1937.
Guido Alfani, an economic history professor at Bocconi University, told Al Jazeera that another comparison is the amount of labor a fortune could buy. By his estimate, Musk could have commanded the work of 557,800 people in 2025, compared with 116,000 for Rockefeller in 1937 and 48,000 for Carnegie in 1901.
Historians also pointed to political parallels between Musk and earlier American magnates. Richard White, a Stanford University history professor emeritus, told Al Jazeera that Gilded Age tycoons such as Rockefeller used political influence to protect and expand their wealth.
Musk has also taken an active political role, according to Al Jazeera. He aligned himself with Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and later led the Trump administration’s campaign to cut waste and fraud in the federal government. Since buying Twitter for $40 billion in 2022 and renaming it X, Musk has used the platform to promote right-wing views on issues including immigration and transgender rights, Al Jazeera reported.
Experts cited by Al Jazeera drew a contrast on philanthropy. Christopher Nichols, a history professor at Ohio State University, said Gilded Age business leaders helped create modern large-scale philanthropy, while Carnegie gave away 90 percent of his wealth late in life, according to MeasuringWorth.
Musk joined the Giving Pledge in 2012, according to Al Jazeera, but the Capital Research Centre said much of his giving through the Musk Foundation has gone to causes linked to his business interests. The centre also reported donations of $37 million to Vanguard Charitable in 2017 and $39 million to Fidelity Charitable from 2018 to 2020.
Daniel Waldenström, an economics professor at the Research Institute of Industrial Economics in Stockholm, told Al Jazeera that Musk’s wealth depends on market values that can fall. He pointed to 2022, when Tesla lost more than 60 percent of its market value during the inflation surge.
This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.