SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 per share Thursday, implying a $1.8 trillion market cap for the company. That boosted Musk’s net worth by $188 billion to an estimated $982 billion, according to Forbes’ calculations. If Tesla’s share price remains unchanged and SpaceX’s stock climbs to $138.50 per share when trading starts Friday, Musk will become the first trillionaire in world history. He’d also become a trillionaire if Tesla’s stock rises from $399 to $424 per share, and SpaceX’s stays at $135, a less likely scenario.

Musk, who serves as chairman, CEO and chief technical officer of SpaceX, owns 4.8 billion shares of the rocketmaker, worth $644 billion. He has another 350 million stock options with an exercise price of $8.40 per share, worth $44 billion, giving him a 38% stake in the company, worth $688 billion at the IPO price. Forbes had been valuing Musk’s estimated 40% stake (before dilution from the public offering) at around $500 billion, based on the $1.25 trillion valuation of SpaceX’s merger with Musk’s artificial intelligence and social media company xAI in February. (xAI previously merged with X–formerly Twitter–in March 2025.)

Musk also owns just over 10% of $1.5 trillion (market cap) Tesla, worth $165 billion, plus options to acquire another nearly 8% stake, worth $114 billion. Rounding out his net worth are smaller stakes in his brain interface startup Neuralink and his tunneling firm Boring Company, plus several billion dollars’ of wealth from previous Tesla share sales.

Not included in Forbes’ estimate of Musk’s net worth: performance-based restricted shares that could boost his stakes in SpaceX and Tesla to 47% and 29%, respectively (before taxes and the cost of unlocking the restricted shares). To earn all that stock, Musk will have to achieve lofty goals like growing SpaceX and Tesla’s market caps to $7.5 trillion and $8.5 trillion, respectively, and establishing a permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants.

Musk is by far the biggest winner but he isn’t the only person whose fortune soared into orbit thanks to SpaceX. Others include a Saudi prince, Twitter’s cofounder and several SpaceX executives and board members. The newest member of the three-comma club is SpaceX’s longtime chief financial officer Bret Johnsen, who is worth an estimated $1.2 billion, thanks to his 0.07% stake in the rocketmaker (including options). The accountant joins PayPal cofounder, venture capitalist and longtime SpaceX investor and board member Luke Nosek as one of two new billionaires revealed since the rocketmaker filed its IPO........

© Forbes