Elon Musk has officially become the world’s first trillionaire following a massive surge in shares of his rocket company SpaceX, which completed Wall Street’s largest initial public offering on Friday. The milestone marks a historic moment in both financial markets and the commercial space industry, as investors bet heavily on the company’s ambitious plans despite massive ongoing losses.

SpaceX shares jumped more than 19 percent after opening for trading on Friday, signaling strong market confidence in the company’s long-term vision. The stock opened around midday at $150 per share, then climbed to approximately $168 before closing just below $161. That closing price gave SpaceX a market valuation of $2.1 trillion, making it the sixth-largest publicly traded company in the United States and surpassing even Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle company where he also serves as CEO.

With his combined holdings in SpaceX and Tesla, Musk is now worth an estimated $1.1 trillion, according to Forbes. The wealth exists primarily on paper, tied to stock holdings and performance-based compensation packages that have occasionally drawn controversy, including criticism from the Vatican over the size of his Tesla pay package.

The timing of SpaceX’s public debut reflects the company’s need for substantial capital to fund its extraordinarily ambitious goals. Founded in 2002, SpaceX has transformed the aerospace industry by developing reusable rockets and securing numerous contracts with NASA and commercial clients. However, Musk says the company now requires additional funding to pursue even more audacious objectives, including deploying satellites and data centers in space and eventually establishing a colony of one million people on Mars.

Musk marked the opening of trading on Nasdaq by participating in a ceremonial bell ringing from Starbase, the company’s South Texas facility. He reiterated his vision “to make life multiplanetary,” telling viewers that SpaceX wants to take ordinary people to the moon, Mars, and beyond—not just trained astronauts.

The IPO raised $75 billion in proceeds at an initial offering price of $135 per share, easily surpassing the previous record held by Saudi oil giant Aramco, which raised less in its 2019 public offering. Both institutional investors and individual retail traders eagerly purchased shares, contributing to the blockbuster debut. According to Jay Ritter, a professor at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business, the typical company going public has historically seen only a 7 percent increase on its first trading day since 1980.

However, the enthusiasm comes with significant risks. SpaceX is burning through cash at an alarming rate, losing $8.7 billion between the start of 2025 and March 31, 2026. The company’s business plan includes establishing space outposts, launching football-field-sized data centers into orbit, and competing with artificial intelligence leaders like Anthropic and OpenAI through its subsidiary xAI. Many of these ventures rely on what SpaceX itself has described in regulatory filings as “unproven technologies.”

Not all analysts share the market’s optimism about SpaceX’s valuation. Morningstar, an independent research firm, described the IPO as “significantly overvalued” and estimated the company’s actual worth at only $780 billion—less than half its current market value. The firm cited technological challenges, including protecting orbital data centers from radiation damage and the lack of a clear path to profitability for xAI.

The investment case for SpaceX is essentially a bet on Musk himself. In an unusual corporate structure that has drawn criticism from shareholder watchdog groups, Musk controls 82 percent of a special class of B shares, giving him sweeping power over company decisions even though his actual ownership stake is roughly half that amount.

Despite the concerns, many investors remain confident. Yordys Coro, an IT support contractor in Miami, watched his $14,000 SpaceX investment grow to $17,000 within hours of the opening and said he plans to hold onto his shares based on faith in Musk’s track record.

That track record includes creating two successful early ventures, Zip2 and PayPal, which netted him approximately $200 million. He then used those proceeds to start SpaceX and invest in Tesla, defying skeptics by building a space company with reusable rockets and making electric vehicles mainstream. Since Tesla went public in 2010, it has delivered a staggering 20,000 percent return for shareholders, generating more than $1.2 trillion in investor wealth.

SpaceX is the first of three anticipated “megacap” IPOs this year, with Anthropic and OpenAI expected to follow. Nasdaq even revised its rules to allow SpaceX entry into index funds within 15 days, meaning the stock will appear in many retirement and investment portfolios sooner than usual.

However, some institutional investors have expressed reservations. Officials from pension funds representing firefighters, teachers, and other workers in California and New York sent a letter to SpaceX last month raising concerns about mandatory arbitration clauses for shareholder disputes and the extent of Musk’s control over the company.

As SpaceX embarks on its journey as a public company, the financial world will be watching closely to see whether Musk can once again transform an industry and deliver returns that justify the extraordinary valuation investors have placed on his vision of a multiplanetary future.