Elon Musk is now the world’s first trillionaire, after his company SpaceX went public on Friday morning.
The 54-year-old businessman and investor founded SpaceX, a space exploration company, in 2002. SpaceX’s initial public offering was officially priced on Thursday at a valuation of $1.77 trillion, making it the highest-valued IPO in history.
Forbes estimates that Musk’s net worth now hovers around $1.1 trillion, thanks to his 38 percent stake in the company.
“It is certainly hard to believe that a little company that was started in a warehouse in El Segundo [California] is now going public with the largest IPO ever,” Musk said in the livestream of NASDAQ’s opening bell.
Still, some critics took a skeptical view of the IPO’s price, including financial services firm Morningstar, which argued yesterday that the IPO is overvalued due to the company’s technology and capital needs.
Musk, for his part, emphasized the need for civilization to become “multi-planetary” and said he hopes to turn science fiction into reality with SpaceX.
SpaceX’s original goal was a self-sustaining Martian colony, though Musk cited hopes of space travel beyond the solar system in the livestream. Recently, SpaceX has also made moves toward building a semiconductor plant with Tesla — the electric car maker that Musk also leads — and has acquired xAI, Musk’s AI company.
Musk, the world’s richest man, has also cofounded several other enterprises, including Neuralink and Zip2.