Elon Musk has become the first person to cross the trillionaire threshold, at least on paper, after SpaceX priced its blockbuster initial public offering at $135 a share.
Before the IPO, Musk was worth an estimated $813 billion, a fortune more than twice as large as the planet’s second-richest person, Google co-founder Larry Page, who is worth an estimated $288 billion, according to Forbes.
SpaceX formally setting its stock price at $135 boosted Musk’s fortune to just over $1 trillion. The shares, which will trade under the ticker symbol “SPCX,” are poised to begin trading on Friday after the Nasdaq Composite index opens at 9:30 a.m. If SpaceX rises above $135 per share, Musk’s wealth will climb further, though he could fall below the trillionaire threshold if the dock sinks.
While billionaire wealth alone may be hard enough to comprehend, a trillionaire represents a level of wealth that rivals the economic output of the world’s biggest nations. Only 19 countries have GDPs that surpass $1 trillion, ranging from the U.S. to the Netherlands, according to World Bank data.
Musk’s surging fortune represents a “new Gilded Age” of wealth inequality, Oxfam America senior director of economic justice Nabil Ahmed said in a statement.
