NEW YORK (AP) — While the SpaceX founder may never fulfill his promise to establish settlements on Mars, sufficient numbers of investors view him as something of a visionary, positioning him to achieve another extraordinary milestone Friday as the rocket enterprise goes public.
The planet’s wealthiest individual is poised to achieve trillionaire status.
Recognized for his innovative technological achievements alongside bold proclamations and delayed timelines, the entrepreneur is anticipated to surpass the trillion-dollar threshold in history’s largest initial public offering as investors wager on an enterprise whose financial shortfalls match its lofty aspirations. Prior to SpaceX’s debut trading, Forbes estimates his wealth at $982.6 billion.
Beyond creating a million-person settlement on Mars, the enterprise has pledged to preserve humanity through additional space installations, deploy orbital data facilities comparable to football field dimensions, and surpass competitors Anthropic and OpenAI in monetizing artificial intelligence technology.
To accomplish these objectives, SpaceX requires billions beyond its current rocket and satellite revenue streams. From early 2025 through March 31, 2026, the enterprise recorded $8.7 billion in losses.
Major institutional purchasers and individual investors have signaled their readiness to invest, offering sufficient pricing for the 555.6 million shares available to generate $75 billion. This amount will substantially exceed the existing record holder, Saudi Aramco, which collected $26 billion during its 2019 public debut.
Should the public offering proceed smoothly, its valuation will depend primarily on one factor: the company’s founder.
The impending trillionaire — at least on paper — built his wealth through two ventures, Zip2 and PayPal, which generated approximately $200 million upon their sales. He invested these proceeds to launch SpaceX and fund Tesla, successfully beating expectations by developing a space enterprise that mastered rocket reusability and an automotive company that popularized electric vehicles.
The entrepreneur has accumulated enormous personal wealth, primarily through stock holdings he hasn’t liquidated or share grants contingent upon Tesla or SpaceX achieving demanding performance benchmarks. His latest Tesla compensation arrangement faced Vatican criticism. At Tesla, he has concerned investors through regulatory disputes or splitting focus among various enterprises, and recently by accepting a position in the Trump administration.
However, climbing share values have resolved these concerns: Following its 2010 public launch, Tesla has delivered 20,000% returns to investors, creating over $1.2 trillion in shareholder value. This success has elevated his pre-SpaceX IPO wealth to $795 billion, per Forbes magazine.
SpaceX leads three “megacap” enterprises anticipated to debut publicly this year, followed by Anthropic and OpenAI. Nasdaq modified its regulations to permit SpaceX inclusion in index-linked funds within 15 days, enabling investors to purchase the rocket manufacturer’s shares much sooner.
Some investors oppose SpaceX’s potential inclusion in their index fund portfolios. Representatives from California and New York pension funds serving firefighters, teachers, and other employees wrote to SpaceX last month criticizing several IPO provisions, including “super voting shares,” required arbitration for shareholder disputes rather than lawsuit options, and the founder’s extensive company control.
