Musk becomes world's first trillionaire

SpaceX float lifts Musk to $1 trillion - 22nd June 2026

As SpaceX shares traded on Wall Street for the first time, the company's founder, Elon Musk, claimed a new crown. According to news agency Bloomberg, Musk's the world's first verified trillionaire, with a personal fortune estimated at $1.23 trillion.

Floating on the stock market with an initial public offering (IPO) value of $135 per share, at the close on its first day, SpaceX stock was trading 11 percent higher at $161. Retaining 40 percent of the firm himself, Musk's wealth now far eclipses the next-richest billionaires, Google co-founder Larry Page and Amazon's Jeff Bezos, while it exceeds the GDP of all but around 20 of the world's richest nations.

Musk gained a foothold in the tech sector in the 1990s, co-founding online city-guides service Zip2 with his brother Kimbal in 1995. After making $22 million from its sale in 1999, Musk founded X.com, an online bank, with $12 million of the proceeds. X.com and a rival digital payment service soon merged and rebranded as PayPal, which eBay acquired in an all-share deal in 2002.

The deal netted Musk $176 million, $100 million of which he ploughed into founding SpaceX, appointing himself its CEO and chief engineer to lead both the strategic and technical vision. SpaceX pioneered reusable rockets, the Starlink satellite constellation and commercial spaceflight, and now provides the Human Landing System transporting NASA's Artemis astronauts to the lunar surface.

In recent times, Musk's brand of entrepreneurship's courted controversy, polarising public opinion. His pledge to cut censorship after acquiring Twitter, rebranded 'X', has seen hate speech and misinformation spread. Musk was also the largest individual political donor of the 2024 US elections, supporting Trump's re-election bid.

When Trump appointed Musk as his Senior Advisor, public pushback worsened and Tesla sales and shares took a nosedive. However, provided he meets ambitious milestones, Musk stands to gain another $1 trillion as Tesla's CEO in a 10-year compensation package negotiated with its board.

Despite being the world's richest man, Musk struggles to access more than 0.1 percent of his fortune. Just $1 billion is held in cash or cash equivalents; the rest sits in the equity of his companies and their shares.