New Delhi: Elon Musk is now on track to surpass the combined wealth of four of the richest people in the world—Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison. A trillionaire. According to reports, he might also become richer than the whole of Taiwan.
Musk’s SpaceX announced its long-anticipated Nasdaq debut on Thursday in what is being described as the largest initial public offering in history, with shares set to begin trading on Friday.
Priced at $138.50 per share, the company’s listing values it at roughly $1.77 trillion, placing SpaceX among the most valued public companies and triggering immediate global attention to its dominance in space infrastructure and its further interplanetary ambitions.
Following the debut, Elon Musk, the company’s CEO and largest shareholder, has seen his estimated net worth surge dramatically, with some market-based projections placing him above the $1 trillion threshold. It would be the first time in history someone has amassed this much wealth. This places him in a financial category that surpasses the GDP of most countries and rivals only a handful of the world’s largest economies.
Despite its transformative reputation, SpaceX enters public markets under financial strain. Disclosures indicate the company has incurred roughly $13 billion in losses since early 2023, driven in part by aggressive investments in artificial intelligence systems and next-generation infrastructure.
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‘A dark day for democracy’
The IPO has also triggered renewed scrutiny from global inequality researchers. A new analysis by Oxfam analysis estimates Musk’s fortune would exceed the combined wealth of the poorest 46 per cent of the global population — around 3.8 billion people.
His wealth has reportedly surged by more than $550 billion in the past year alone, at an average rate of over $1 million per minute.
“Elon Musk’s rise to trillionaire status marks a new pinnacle of oligarchy and a dark day for democracy. But this moment of dramatically concentrated wealth was not inevitable,” said Nabil Ahmed, senior director of economic justice at Oxfam America, “Musk will be a government-backed trillionaire whose fortune was fueled by an era of regressive public policy choices — decisions rigged by a tiny few to fuel their fortunes, and overwhelmingly supported by political leaders.”
The organisation argues that a 10 per cent tax on a $1 trillion fortune could fund the eradication of global extreme poverty for a year, lifting over 800 million people above the poverty line.