who wants to be a Millionaire? Several years ago an American show highlighted people’s aspiration to reach the 7 figure figure. After almost three decades, the world has got its first trillionaire – Elon Musk. A number that has not seven or eight but thirteen digits! Simply put, the net worth of the world’s richest man is Rs 10 lakh crore instead of Rs 10 lakh!Elon Musk has reached this milestone on the basis of the listing of SpaceX, which started trading on Nasdaq with a valuation of about $ 1.96 trillion. Elon Musk’s SpaceXNow is listed on the Nasdaq exchange at $150, and its ticker is SPCX.In fact, Musk’s net worth can be calculated by combining the wealth of the next four richest people in the world – Alphabet co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos and Oracle founder Larry Ellison.According to Oxfam, crossing the $1 trillion threshold means Musk has added more than $550 billion to his wealth in just one year, amounting to an average of more than $1 million every minute.
spacex ipo Musk got the status of trillionaire
SpaceX is an aerospace, satellite communications and artificial intelligence company that, along with Tesla, is the backbone of Elon Musk’s business empire. On Thursday, it completed a record-breaking $75 billion initial public offering (IPO). SpaceX, the rocket company of which Starlink is a part, has plans that include building a self-sustaining colony on Mars. It also hopes to deploy large orbital data centers and compete with artificial intelligence leaders such as Anthropic and OpenAI in the race to commercialize AI technologies.
SpaceX businesses include aerospace, satellite communications, commercial rocket launch services and space technology. These sectors go beyond the traditional tech sector like manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, engineering, and hence there has been increased interest among retail and institutional investors in IPOs.Before the listing, Elon Musk shared that when the company was founded in 2002, he himself was doubtful about its success. “It’s certainly hard to believe that a small company that started in a warehouse in El Segundo has the biggest IPO ever. To be clear, I gave SpaceX less than a 10% chance of being successful. In fact, I told people, look, we’re probably going to fail, but you know, we should give it a try,” he said.Elon Musk is known for pushing technological boundaries, thinking the unimaginable, and even missing his timeline in some parts. Before the listing, Forbes had estimated his net worth at $982.6 billion.“SpaceX wants to be able to take you to the Moon, take you to Mars, and ultimately beyond,” Musk said at the launch event at Starbase, Texas. “At this point I have full confidence that with the incredible team we have at SpaceX, we will make this happen for you,” Musk said.
path to becoming a billionaire
Elon Musk started his entrepreneurial journey with the sale of Zip2 and eventually PayPal – two things that made about $200 million for him! That capital was spent and divided between SpaceX and Tesla. Overcoming the obstacles, he created a rocket company that dared to reuse rockets, and with Tesla, electric vehicles began to become mainstream.Elon Musk’s net worth is mainly linked to these two companies – SpaceX and Tesla. Company stock and performance-related awards make up the majority of his net worth, rather than actual cash profits. So Musk has become a trillionaire on paper, but not in terms of cash. Recently Tesla approved a trillion dollar pay package based on several achievements for the carmaker.
Investors have also sometimes expressed concern over his clashes with regulators, his involvement in multiple businesses, and more recently, his role within the Trump administration.Still, Tesla’s share-price performance has allayed many of those concerns. Since its market debut in 2010, Tesla has generated returns of nearly 20,000% for shareholders, creating more than $1.2 trillion in investor wealth.Tesla has emerged as a transformative force in the automotive sector. And many investors believe Musk can replicate Tesla’s success in other areas, particularly space technology and artificial intelligence. That performance helped boost Musk’s wealth to nearly $795 billion even before the SpaceX IPO, according to Forbes.
Can Musk maintain this?
It is important to note that a large portion of Musk’s net worth is tied to SpaceX. His stake in the company is worth about $866 billion. According to Reuters calculations, Musk’s net worth has crossed $1 trillion after SpaceX’s listing – adding the value of his shares in Tesla and some other ventures. This estimate also takes into account stock-based compensation that will vest over time.Since Musk’s fortunes are linked to Tesla and SpaceX, the performance of these companies and hence their stocks will determine the path forward for the richest man’s net worth.SpaceX still needs significant capital. A large portion of its valuation is tied to projects and technologies that may take years or even decades to generate any meaningful commercial returns.Meeting the objectives requires far more capital than SpaceX currently generates from its launch and satellite operations. The company recorded a loss of $8.7 billion between January 2025 and March 31, 2026.
Nitin Dongre, director and CEO of Anand Rathi International Ventures IFSC Pvt Ltd, says both companies will require huge investments to turn a profit.Dongare told TOI that SpaceX’s revenue of about $19 billion in 2025 and net loss of $5 billion last year do not justify SpaceX’s high valuation.“This industry is capital intensive so to maintain the trillionaire tag Musk will have to fund continued growth in SpaceX and the Starlink business that generates revenue from satellite internet service. Tesla on the other hand will have to expand its leadership in AI driven mobility which may require more capital in the long run” he says.He further added, “Improvement in technology and AI stocks, competition in the EV market could bring down their trillionaire tag. They would need to have good numbers in all their business ventures to maintain the trillionaire tag. Only a 10-20% decline in valuations of their major stocks could bring them down from the trillionaire tag.”
Valuation concerns for SpaceX
Ahead of the listing, global brokerages and experts have raised concerns about SpaceX’s valuation. Despite strong demand from investors and a planned $75 billion fundraising that would value SpaceX at approximately $1.77 trillion, many market experts have questioned whether the valuation is appropriate.In fact, valuation expert Ashwath Damodaran estimates the company’s equity value at about $1.3 trillion, which is about $500 billion less than the IPO valuation. He argues that SpaceX’s assumptions about the size of the artificial intelligence market are overly optimistic.Damodaran, often referred to as Wall Street’s ‘Dean of Valuation’, believes the company is offering an exceptionally large opportunity to its AI business, particularly XAI.While SpaceX estimates the total addressable market at about $28 trillion, it puts the long-term AI opportunity closer to $3-4 trillion and expects margins to shrink due to increased competition and the high cost of AI infrastructure.“Given my valuation of $1.25-1.35 trillion for equity in the company, at a rumored price of $1.8 trillion, this is too high a price for my taste. This does not mean I will never buy the stock, because the market changes its mind, and if the price drops sufficiently, my decision will change accordingly,” he says.
Jefferies strategist Chris Wood raised concerns about a Nasdaq rule change that could accelerate SpaceX’s inclusion in the Nasdaq-100 index after just 15 trading days of listing. They argue that this could force passive funds to buy large amounts of stock, artificially increasing demand. “The rapid tracking of new listings in indexes has never happened before in the U.S., as far as greed and fear are concerned,” Wood wrote.But, one cannot ignore that the unprecedented response to the SpaceX IPO is also important at this time as the market is riding the AI and semiconductor wave. Fellow companies like Open AI and Anthropic are also launching their mega IPOs targeting trillion valuations, indicating demand for AI-linked stocks and the market’s optimistic view about it. Despite the losses, investor demand remains exceptionally strong. Institutional funds and retail investors alike have shown willingness to support the company, raising $75 billion through the sale of 555.6 million shares. Some attribute this to a factor they call the ‘Elon premium’ – thought to stem from investors’ confidence in Musk’s long-term vision and ability to execute on ambitious ideas.Oppenheimer became the first major brokerage to initiate coverage of SpaceX ahead of its listing.The firm gave the stock an “Outperform” rating and set a target price of $190 per share, which implies a potential gain of about 41% from the IPO price of $135.Based on that target, Oppenheimer believes SpaceX’s market value could rise to about $2.5 trillion over the next 12 to 18 months.Interestingly, both Wood and Damodaran remain positive on SpaceX’s core businesses, particularly Starlink, which has doubled its customer base to more than 10 million users and is seen as the company’s strongest near-term earnings driver.As Damodaran concludes: No matter what your thoughts are about the SpaceX IPO, positive or negative, there’s no denying that this company is betting heavily on AI and Elon Musk, and while that may be a concern for some, there are others who will look at Musk’s track record with Tesla and feel that the odds are in their favor.(Disclaimer: The recommendations and views given by experts on the stock market, other asset classes or personal finance management tips are their own. These opinions do not represent the views of The Times of India.)
