Elon Musk’s SpaceX went public with a valuation containing twelve zeros. Some reactions, in order of appearance.
SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 a share on Friday, selling 555.6 million shares and valuing the company at roughly $1.77 trillion. The stock then opened at around $150, about 11 percent above the offering price, and by midday Elon Musk’s net worth had crossed an estimated $1.1 trillion — a threshold no human being has ever touched.
There is an asterisk roughly the size of a Falcon 9 attached to all of this, which is that Musk is a trillionaire, as The Washington Post put it, “depending on how you count his wealth.” His SpaceX is also a company that lost $4.94 billion last year, which your retirement account is now more or less obligated to admire. So, yes, I have some thoughts.
- One trillion dollars?! A million million? I cannot conceptualize this number.
- “World’s first trillionaire” sounds like something Dr. Evil would assert he is while nibbling his pinky. And yet.
- Genuinely, no one needs this. I have watched what men do with comparatively modest billions, and it is mostly posting and giving everyone the icks.
- If you counted to a trillion out loud, one number per second, it would take you more than 31,000 years!
- The second-richest person alive, Larry Page, is sitting at home worth a measly $288 billion. Like an absolute pauper.
- God help us: At about $100,000 a pop, $1.1 trillion is enough for roughly 11 million Cybertrucks.
- It’s also enough to buy every single person in America a genuinely nice sandwich every day for the rest of their lives.
- The New York Jets are worth somewhere north of $8 billion, meaning Musk could buy the franchise (more than a hundred times) and still not solve the quarterback situation. He’s rich, not a genie.
- Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote the SEC a whole letter trying to stop this IPO and called Musk “virtually unimpeachable,” which, respectfully, is not the drag she intended it to be.
- The SEC did not respond to the letter. A letter! Against a trillion dollars! Bring a knife to a knife fight, babe.
- Here is the part where I remind you that SpaceX lost $4.94 billion in 2025, and that thanks to a Nasdaq rule change, index funds will soon be required to buy the stock anyway.
- So a company that lost nearly $5 billion just signed your 401(k) up to be a fan against its will. Welcome to the street team, here’s your lanyard.
- I, personally, would not lose $5 billion.
- Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, renamed it X, and has now tucked it inside a rocket company so we’d stop asking how it’s doing. Sir. We can still see it.
- Jamie Dimon, who used to literally sue this man, now calls him “our Einstein.” Nothing mends a lawsuit like a $1.77 trillion valuation.
- He’s not allowed to sell any of it for a full year, making him a trillionaire who cannot spend a dime: the richest man on earth, currently waiting for a Venmo to clear.
- Meanwhile, Tesla wants to pay him up to another trillion and…. I still have to pay extra for oat milk in my matcha?
- He only gets that second trillion if Tesla builds a million robotaxis and hits an $8.5 trillion valuation, goals so casually deranged I sighed, loudly.
- Musk has said he wants to die on Mars, “just not on impact.” Ahem. Maybe the laws of physics take American Express?
- Oh, I see his birthday is in a few weeks. I have the perfect present!
- Even the Vatican has criticized how much he’s being paid, which is the Church’s gentle way of reminding everyone that greed is still, technically, one of the original seven sins.
- A Danish pension fund blacklisted the company for governance it called “catastrophic,” and the Danes, historically, do not miss.
- I keep waiting to feel something profound about all of this, and so far it’s mostly the dull realization that I should have bought a rocket in 2009.
- In fairness, the rockets are real and very cool and the satellite internet genuinely helps people in places that need it.
- There is something deeply 2026 about the richest human in recorded history also being the man most likely to reply to a meme with a less-funny, possibly racist meme at 3 a.m.
- A business-school professor noted that this level of inequality is, you know, bad for democracy, and I had to set my phone down for a second.
- Then I picked it right back up, because that is the other thing all of us are doing while this happens.
- Oh god. How many more children and ex-wives can he afford to support now?
- “Broke by Musk standards” now means roughly $826 billion, which was his net worth on Thursday. I would like to be broke like that.
- The gap between him and the rest of us, per the Post, is “no longer a lead. It’s a chasm.” *Checking my balance.*
- Anyway, the stock could dip and erase the entire title by Monday, which is, frankly, the most relatable thing about him.
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