SpaceX, Elon Musk’s conglomerate of space and AI companies, has joined the stock market and made him the world’s first trillionaire.
The rocket maker jumped 11% as the stock opened for trading on Friday, giving the company a market value of $1.96 trillion – enough to make its Chief Executive, Musk, a trillionaire.
It was the highest IPO in history with proceeds of $75 billion, as institutional and retail investors jumped at the opportunity to buy 555.6 million shares at the offering price of $135 (£100) apiece.
But while Musk may be celebrating, the stock has sent alarm bells around Wall Street due to the unprecedented valuation of the business and the way he has been able to demand special privileges for the listing.
Only six companies in the S&P 500 are currently worth more than SpaceX, with Nvidia at the top at $5.2 trillion.
Musk has claimed he listed the company on the stock market to raise funds for SpaceX’s extremely ambitious goals.
Among SpaceX’s dreams is establishing a million-person colony on Mars.
But in the short term, Musk has said the funding will be used to put 100,000 next-generation Starlink satellites into orbit.
These satellites will be faster versions of the current Starlink satellites and will expand and speed up their internet provider services.
Musk has also said he hopes to use the technology from the new satellites to eventually launch "data centres in space".
He has these could be a “massive new growth base" and "you need capital for that,” but the ability to host data centres in space has not yet been proven.
