SpaceX makes Musk first trillionaire - 22nd June 2026

Elon Musk's made history, becoming the world's first verified trillionaire. After SpaceX shares traded for the first time, his net worth's now approximately $1.23 trillion.

Although SpaceX's initial public offering (IPO) set a share value of $135, this jumped 11 percent to $161 after one day's trading. Holding a 40 percent stake in SpaceX, Musk's personal fortune's reached heights far beyond the next-richest billionaires.

Google founder Larry Page and Amazon's Jeff Bezos both have around a quarter of Musk's wealth. There are only around 20 countries with a GDP greater than his personal fortune.

Musk's presence in the tech industry began in the 1990s. His first company, Zip2, co-founded with his brother Kimbal, provided online city guides. Its sale in 1999 earned Musk $22 million, $12 million of which he invested setting up X.com. Founded as an online bank, X.com quickly merged with a competing online payments business. The new firm, named PayPal, was acquired by eBay in 2002.

Later that year, Musk founded SpaceX with $100 million of his $176 million profit from PayPal's sale. As CEO and chief engineer, Musk controlled SpaceX's strategic and technical direction. He led efforts to engineer reusable rockets, produce the Starlink satellite network, and advance commercial spaceflight.

Despite his achievements, Musk's a controversial and polarising entrepreneur. After acquiring Twitter, which he rebranded as 'X', changes made to reduce censorship saw a rise in hate speech and misinformation on the platform.

In 2024, Musk's donations to Trump's presidential campaign were the election's largest individual political contribution. This and his subsequent role as Trump's senior advisor resulted in pushback from the public. Sales of shares in Tesla, which Musk leads as CEO, plummeted.

Although the world's first trillionaire, nearly all of Musk's fortune is from the value of his companies. He holds just 0.1 percent of his assets, equal to around $1 billion, in cash and cash equivalents.