Elon Musk has become world's first ever trillionaire following initial public offering (IPO) of his rocket company SpaceX. The IPO on Wall Street added nearly $870 billion to Mr Musk's wealth. He has amassed almost $290 billion from Tesla. He also has eye-watering equity in X, Neuralink, and Boring Company. Musk is now worth more than world's next four richest individuals combined. The bulk of Musk's unfathomable wealth is tied up in stock holdings across these business ventures, rather than in cash. SpaceX's IPO was largest in history, raising $75 billion. It surpassed previous record of $29.4 billion set by oil company Aramco in 2019.
Elon Musk is super-entrepreneur. He made his initial fortune by helping to create PayPal. That netted him about $176 million, which he used to start SpaceX in 2002, and invest in Tesla. SpaceX pioneered reuse of rocket boosters and now dominates space travel industry. It accounted for more than half of all rocket launches last year. The company also has 10,000 Starlink satellites in orbit. Musk's aspiration is to "make life multiplanetary". He wants anyone to be able to travel to space. At the IPO, he said: "Whoever you are watching this, SpaceX wants to be able to take you to Moon, take you to Mars, and ultimately beyond." He added: "Not just few astronauts, I mean literally you."
