As SpaceX IPO blasts off, Elon Musk becomes a trillionaire

Some SpaceX launches have failed, some have succeeded — and the company's IPO certainly fell into the latter category Friday, turning CEO Elon Musk into the world's first trillionaire.

The company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, and SpaceX shares (the official shortened form, in case you were wondering, is SPCX) quickly rocketed upwards from the initial price of $135 a share. At time of writing, shares had reached the stratospheric heights of $170 — making it the biggest IPO in history.

That values SpaceX, which recently merged with Musk's xAI, at above $2 trillion. To put that in perspective, the New York Times reports that's more than Walmart and General Motors combined, though both Google and Nvidia have surpassed the $4 trillion threshhold. And so long as SpaceX trades above $138 per share, Musk is officially the world's first trillionaire — with none of his former peers in the billionaire category coming anywhere close.

It may be the largest IPO in terms of money, but not in terms of the number of shares offered: 555.5 million. That's a relatively small number, which means the stock is getting a bump from investors who are all in on Musk and willing to offer higher prices.

The price is expected to rise and fall as the market absorbs SpaceX and ponders whether its merger with xAI — the reason the combined company has recorded $5 billion in losses so far this year — is worth it. The SpaceX IPO literature promised the company would make money from AI data centers in space, admitting it was a completely unproven concept.

Musk, who has not steered away from political controversy during the so-called quiet period, needs the stock to stay above $138 to retain his trillionaire status. (He already has an unusual amount of control over SpaceX, with more than 80 percent of voting shares.)

That looks simple now — but the ongoing AI backlash, which has finally reached Silicon Valley, could complicate matters. As the first major AI company to IPO, SpaceX is uniquely exposed to shifts in the AI wind.

We'll know more about the way it's blowing when Anthropic has its IPO later this year — and we see what the market thinks about an AI company when it comes without Musk's star power.