SpaceX's $75 Billion IPO Makes Musk the World's First Trillionaire

Now I'll write the article.

A rocket company priced like a religion

SpaceX completed the largest initial public offering in history on Friday, raising $75 billion in immediate proceeds and ending its first day of trading worth roughly $2.1 trillion.aviationweek +1 Shares were priced at $135 ahead of the debut — a level that already implied a $1.77 trillion valuation — then opened at $150 on the Nasdaq, peaked at $176.52 around midday, and closed up more than 19% at about $161.theguardian +1 The pop crowned Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire, lifting his personal fortune to roughly $1.1 trillion, an increase of more than $62 billion in a single day, according to Forbes.theguardian

Musk sold none of his own shares and retains more than 82% of the company's voting power, leaving him almost impossible to unseat and largely insulated from shareholder pressure.theguardian He had earlier folded his AI startup, xAI, into SpaceX — the move that lets the company market itself as an AI play rather than just a launch business.theguardian

The numbers behind the trillion-dollar story

For all the enthusiasm, SpaceX is losing money. The company has accumulated a deficit of $41.3 billion since its 2002 founding and posted a $1.9 billion operating loss in the first quarter, while its prospectus warns it may never turn a profit.cnbc The combined space and AI segments generated $1.4 billion in first-quarter revenue against $3.1 billion in operating losses; the xAI arm alone lost $6.4 billion last year.cnbc +1

Starlink remains the only profitable piece, with consumer broadband customers more than doubling over the past year to 10.3 million.cnbc But growth is getting harder: average revenue per user fell to $66 a month in the first quarter from $86 a year earlier, and operating income barely moved even as subscribers doubled.cnbc Recent multibillion-dollar compute deals helped the story — Anthropic agreed to pay $1.25 billion a month through May 2029, and Google committed $920 million a month for 32 months.cnbc

Buyers who call it 'stupid' and buy anyway

The offering steered an unusually large slice — in the low 20% range — to retail investors, well above the typical 5% to 10%.cnbc Many bought despite open skepticism. "It's outrageous. It's stupid. It's unreasonable," one Robinhood trader said of the valuation while requesting 1,000 shares.cnbc A Cornell finance student conceded "there's no way you can multiply your way into a $1.7 trillion market cap," yet bought in anyway, betting on Musk's record of overcoming doubters.cnbc Harvard's Mihir Desai described Musk's most loyal backers as a "financial cult" — willing to play even if they think it's crazy, because the bigger fear is missing out.theguardian