SpaceX IPO makes thousands of employees millionaires
Updated . First published at
More than 4000 people are estimated to have become millionaires as Elon Musk’s space company goes public.
SpaceX set its final initial public offering (IPO) price at $A192, making it the most expensive entry into the share market ever.
Elon Musk is set to become the world's first trillionaire. AP Photo/Matt Rourke
The price values the company at $A2.52 trillion, meaning Musk has become the world’s first trillionaire in Australian dollars.
The company sold 555 million shares in hours.
But while nearly half of the company’s shares are owned by Musk, thousands of former and current employees are set to suddenly get rich from their share holdings.
For years, SpaceX employees have been given shares in lieu of other salaries or bonuses.
Investment platform Hill.com estimated that 4400 people would become millionaires in the IPO, and about 400 will make more than $100 million.
But the New York Times reports some SpaceX workers traded in their stocks years ago for restaurant gift cards.
The IPO is available not just to investment banks and institutional investors but ordinary buyers.
This will mean regular people who are big fans of Musk will be able to buy into the company.
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas. AP Photo/Eric Gay
But the enthusiasm from the market doesn’t extend to all experts. Analysts at Morningstar say SpaceX is worth about half of what it is valued at.
“Our valuation is the result of mathematics more than scepticism,” the Morningstar statement said.
The analysts said the IPO’s listing price was predicated on the assumption SpaceX could “achieve a rapidly reusable Starship rocket enabling multiple launches per week and successfully commercialise data centres in space”.
“Neither of these engineering problems has been solved, and we don’t expect them to be until at least 2028.”
Despite Morningstar’s concerns, SpaceX’s IPO has made it among the top 10 public companies in the world.
It is now bigger than Musk’s other company, Tesla.
SpaceX’s initial sale is close to three times larger than the previous biggest IPO.
Among the retail investors are 30,000 Australians submitting bid applications through CommSec.
Elon Musk is now the richest man in history. AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein
Musk’s remarkable accumulation of wealth has been criticised by Oxfam’s Nabil Ahmed.
“Elon Musk’s rise to trillionaire status marks a new pinnacle of oligarchy and a dark day for democracy,” Ahmed said.
“A trillion dollars in the hands of one man is incompatible not only with an affordable economy, but also with a healthy democracy.
Economic inequality begets political inequality, and ordinary people bear the brunt while billionaires continue to write the rules for their own benefit.”
Musk, who was born in South Africa before moving to Canada and then the United States, spent much of the day on X retweeting posts complaining about immigration to the UK.
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