Elon Musk becomes world’s first trillionaire as SpaceX shares soar on stock market debut

The launch of SpaceX shares has cemented Musk’s status as the world’s first trillionaire.

Shares of SpaceX hit the open stock market just before noon eastern time, and immediately went for about $150 (£112) each.

The share price quickly increased to $160, and showed signs of ticking up after that.

At $160, shares are being sold at 18% more than the estimated listing price of $135 SpaceX shared on Thursday.
When will SpaceX shares actually begin trading?published at 16:37

The Nasdaq is currently trying to find a balance of investors wanting to buy and sell SpaceX shares before it officially begins trading – and we get a confirmed share price for the company.

But Samuel Kerr, global head of equity capital markets at Mergermarket, said the company’s value should jump at least 20% when it begins trading “due to the hype around the deal”.

“Anything lower would actually make me nervous,” he said. It could be midday ET (17:00 BST) before we see a value attached to the shares.

Reuters has reported the stock could open as high as $175 per share, but has now revised it down to $150, still significantly higher than its $135 offer price.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk said he gave the company “less than a 10% chance of succeeding at all” when it first started, and it is now going public “with the largest IPO ever”.

Musk made the remarks from the company’s headquarters in southern Texas before it officially began trading on the US stock exchange.

Company officials celebrated the ceremonial start of trading at twin ceremonies at the Nasdaq headquarters in New York City and from the Texas headquarters.

If share sales in SpaceX reach or exceed the company’s suggested price of $135 (£100), founder Elon Musk will become the world’s first trillionaire. Let’s breakdown what this means:

A trillion is a thousand billion. That’s a one followed by 12 zeros. 1,000,000,000,000.

But how does this unimaginable sum compare with some real life things we actually know the value of?

To put it into context, the personal wealth of King Charles is thought to be less than $1bn (£740m), while the world’s most valuable sports team, the Dallas Cowboys, is estimated to be worth $13bn, and the ride-hailing giant Uber has a market value of about $142bn.

It would take the average US worker 16.3 million years to earn £1tn.
$1tn is roughly the value of the entire Swiss economy.   (BBC)