Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has become the first person in the world to hit the USD trillionaire mark.
The historic achievement follows the highly successful public listing of SpaceX, Musk’s aerospace company, which made its debut on the stock market.
According to news reports, as SpaceX shares rise higher, $158.51, Elon Musk’s worth has passed $1 trillion. And as the majority shareholder, owning more than 41% of SpaceX, Musk is the biggest beneficiary of the rising share price.
Earlier reports has shown that investor confidence in Musk’s business was on full display on Thursday 11, where SpaceX which deals in reusable rockets, satellites and artificial intelligence, secured a record USD 75 billion through its Initial Public Offering (IPO). Prior to the IPO, Musk’s fortune was already estimated at $813 billion.
Few hours after trading opened on Friday June 12, shares in Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, reportedly soared 23%. The stock finished the day at $161 a share after opening for trading at $150, making the firm the sixth largest US company with a market value above $2.1 trillion.
That’s more than enough to push founder and chief executive Musk’s net worth to more than $1 trn, with Forbes estimating a figure of $1.1 trn.
Lifeissues Magazine reported that Musk first rose to global prominence through Tesla and SpaceX before extending his influence further with the USD 44 billion purchase of Twitter (now X) in 2024, which gave him access to a massive online community and the chance to regulate the platform.
In addition to Tesla and SpaceX, Musk has helped launch several other companies, including tunnel-instruction venture The Boring Company and brain-implant developer Neuralink.
According to Sky News, Musk says SpaceX, founded in 2002, is going public now because – as the IPO indicates – it needs money to fund its lofty ambition. This includes putting Satellites and data centres in space and eventually establishing a colony of people on Mars.
Elon Musk is a South African-born American entrepreneur, invenstor, and business magnate, who became an American citizen in 2002, the very year he founded the space technology company SpaceX, becoming its CEO and chief engineer.
He was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria South Africa. In 1988, he moved to Canada to attend Queen’s University, subsequently transferring to the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned degree in physics and economics. He reportedly married thrice and a father to 14 children.
