Elon Musk officially became the first person in history to amass a personal fortune exceeding one trillion dollars, following the opening of SpaceX’s initial public offering on Wall Street. As of Friday morning, Musk’s net worth rocketed to an estimated $1.1 trillion — more than three times the wealth of the world’s second-richest person and, according to Rolling Stone, equivalent to 46 percent of the world’s population combined.
The milestone was driven almost entirely by the SpaceX IPO, which gave public investors their first chance to buy shares in the rocket and satellite company Musk has built over two decades. While Musk has long sat atop global wealth rankings thanks to his stakes in Tesla and other ventures, the SpaceX listing pushed him into territory no individual has reached before — raising fresh questions about the concentration of wealth and power in a single pair of hands.
