SpaceX soars 23% in Wall Street debut and makes Elon Musk the first trillionaire

NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of SpaceX soared 23% in their Wall Street debut on Friday, making the rocket maker’s CEO Elon Musk the first-ever trillionaire.

The shares opened at $150 and kept rising, reaching $166.90 around 12:.20 p.m. ET. That price gave the company a market value of $2.18 trillion. 

Forbes is now estimating Musk’s net worth at $1.1 trillion.

Institutional and retail investors jumped at the opportunity to buy 555.6 million shares of SpaceX at the offering price of $135 apiece. 

The $75 billion in proceeds easily topped the previous record IPO from oil giant Saudi Aramco in 2019.

Musk says SpaceX is going public now because it needs money to fund its ambitions of putting satellites and data centers in space and eventually establishing a colony of people on Mars.

Musk earlier marked the opening of trading on Nasdaq, where the company’s are trading under the symbol “SPCX,” by joining a ceremonial bell ringing from Starbase, the South Texas home of SpaceX.

He reiterated his lofty goals “to make life multi-planetary.”

“Not just a few astronauts, I mean literally you,” Musk said. “Whoever you are watching this, SpaceX wants to be able to take you to the moon, take you to Mars and ultimately beyond.”

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