Elon Musk

Elon Musk Becomes the World's First Trillionaire. Is That Such a Bad Thing?

Growing economies benefit all people, not just the uberwealthy.

Joe Lancaster | 6.12.2026 2:45 PM

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(Beata Zawrzel/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom)

Elon Musk, the world's richest man, extended his lead by becoming the first trillionaire in world history. Many progressives have bemoaned this result for years, but is there really anything to fear?

The space exploration company SpaceX went public this week, announcing on Thursday an initial price of $135 per share. Musk, the founder, CEO, chief technology officer, and chairman of the board, "holds roughly half of the company's stock, including shares that he might earn far in the future tied to accomplishments such as shooting computer data centers into space and creating a human settlement on Mars," Shira Ovide and Faiz Siddiqui report at The Washington Post. "Those Musk shares in SpaceX are worth about $867 billion at Thursday's IPO price. Combined with the chunk of the automaker Tesla that also belongs to Musk, his stock in the two companies is valued at more than $1.1 trillion combined."

The company's stock opened at $150 and hit $170 after trading began, putting Musk comfortably above the trillion-dollar mark even without the bonus shares tied to space colonization.

The news was hardly a surprise. Musk even referred to himself as a trillionaire in March, in a cheeky reply to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.) on X—the platform formerly known as Twitter before Musk bought it outright in........

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