SpaceX shares soared 23% following their Wall Street debut, making CEO Elon Musk the first trillionaire in history, UNN reports, citing AP.
Shares opened at $150 and continued to rise, reaching $166.90 around 12:20 p.m. ET. This price gave the company a market capitalization of $2.18 trillion. Forbes now estimates Musk's net worth at $1.1 trillion.
Institutional and retail investors seized the opportunity to purchase 555.6 million SpaceX shares at the offering price of $135 per share. The $75 billion proceeds significantly exceeded the previous IPO record set by oil giant Saudi Aramco in 2019.
SpaceX IPO makes Musk the world's first trillionaire12.06.26, 09:05
Musk says SpaceX is going public now because it needs money to fund its ambitions to launch satellites and data centers into space and, eventually, establish a human colony on Mars.
Earlier, Musk marked the opening of trading on Nasdaq, where the company's shares trade under the symbol SPCX, by participating in a bell-ringing ceremony at Starbase, located in South Texas, where SpaceX is based.