With SpaceX completing the largest IPO financing in history, the global capital markets are witnessing a historic moment. The $75 billion fundraising has significantly shattered global IPO records, catapulting the company's valuation to $1.77 trillion, which directly boosts Musk's net worth into the trillion-dollar club, simultaneously creating thousands of new millionaires. Behind this seemingly extreme wealth celebration lies a core issue that is easily overlooked: the vast majority of paper wealth lacks real liquidity. The narrative of massive valuations, ultra-high net worth, and universal wealth creation is essentially a sophisticated mathematical game in the capital markets.
Not only that, if the currently hot top AI firms begin to go public one after another, they may replicate or even exceed SpaceX's wealth creation effect. However, all the wealth creation logic for top tech companies going public revolves around one ultimate proposition: on-paper valuations do not equate to liquid wealth, and the high valuations hide multiple risks related to liquidity, profitability, and operations.
One, an epic IPO lands: breaking global records, the trillionaire officially emerges.
On June 12, 2026, SpaceX finalized the IPO issuance plan, issuing 555.6 million shares at a price of $135 per share, raising a total of $75 billion. This figure directly breaks the long-standing global IPO record, more than doubling the $29.4 billion raised by Saudi Aramco in 2019, with the company's overall valuation pegged at $1.77 trillion.
With this mega IPO landing, Musk's personal on-paper wealth has successfully surpassed $1 trillion, making him the first trillionaire in human history. Yet beneath the shiny valuation data, the company's hidden operational shortcomings and structural wealth defects are gradually being exposed. Public operating data shows that SpaceX is projected to have a net loss of $4.9 billion in 2025, with a total accumulated loss exceeding $37 billion; its xAI business is also in a massive loss state, with annual losses reaching $6.4 billion.
It's worth noting that while xAI continues to post losses, it holds a steady stream of high-revenue computing power leasing income, raking in $26 billion annually from leading AI firms and tech giants. On one hand, there's substantial revenue coming in, while on the other, there's ongoing significant losses, compounded by the company's mere 4.2% circulating supply. The volatility logic of SpaceX's stock price, the difficulty of monetizing wealth, and future growth potential all exhibit strong uniqueness.
Two, the truth of a trillion-dollar fortune: super voting rights facilitate, 85% of wealth difficult to liquidate.
The core support of Musk's trillion-dollar fortune is SpaceX's staggering valuation of $1.77 trillion, but the market often overlooks the key detail: this high net worth is essentially 'paper valuation,' with most of the wealth not readily convertible to cash.
From the perspective of the equity structure, Musk holds 85.1% of the voting rights in the company, and post-IPO, he still firmly controls more than half of the voting rights, maintaining absolute operational control. However, voting rights and actual economic rights are not equivalent; Musk primarily achieves control through super-voting shares with high voting value and low liquidity value. The actual proportion of economic rights corresponding to dividends and asset returns is far lower than the 85.1% voting rights ratio.
Based on the industry's equity structure patterns, Musk's actual economic stake is likely to fall within the range of 35%-55%. Even with a conservative estimate, considering his stakes in Tesla, xAI, Neuralink, and other non-listed assets, his total net worth still firmly surpasses the trillion-dollar mark, confirming his status as a trillionaire.
However, the lack of liquidity becomes the biggest shortcoming, with multiple shackles locking Musk's wealth realization pathway. First, there are restrictions from the lock-up period post-IPO that prohibit the founding shareholders from selling their shares in the short term; second, large-scale reductions would directly dilute control, shaking his absolute dominance over SpaceX; finally, substantial selling by the founder could easily incite market panic, leading to a sharp stock price drop and significantly shrinking actual cash-out gains.
Referring to the reduction rhythm of industry benchmarks, Amazon founder Bezos has long maintained a gentle reduction ratio of 2%-3% per year to mitigate market volatility risks. If Musk follows this rhythm for cashing out, the amount he can liquidate annually would only account for 1.6%-2.4% of his trillion-dollar fortune. This also means that over 98% of Musk's trillion-dollar wealth remains locked up, unable to circulate or be converted into cash, rendering the illusion of paper wealth far exceeding market perceptions.
Three, a wealth creation frenzy for all: 4,400 new millionaires, paper wealth difficult to cash in.
The recent SpaceX IPO has generated a massive grassroots wealth effect, with around 4,400 employees becoming millionaires through the equity incentive plan, setting a new record for the wealth coverage of tech company IPOs globally.
In terms of wealth scale, based on a minimum of $1 million in on-paper assets per person, the total value of employee stock ownership is at least $4.4 billion; if we refer to the industry median level, the individual stock ownership value generally ranges from $1.5 million to $3 million, leading to an overall employee stock ownership scale of $6.6 billion to $13.2 billion. Compared with past tech giants' IPOs, Facebook's 2012 IPO only created over a thousand millionaires, and the employee scale and wealth creation number for Snowflake's 2020 IPO were far less than SpaceX's.
This widespread wealth generation model stems from SpaceX's unique business attributes. Unlike light-asset software tech companies, SpaceX focuses on aerospace hardware manufacturing, rocket launches, and satellite internet services, requiring several times the manpower of internet firms to support operations. The wealth distribution is broader and aligns more closely with manufacturing distribution logic, but the average wealth per person is lower than that of pure internet tech companies.
Like Musk's trillion-dollar fortune, the million-dollar wealth of thousands of employees is also stuck in the paper phase; converting it into actual cash requires overcoming three core restrictions. Firstly, there's the lock-up period post-IPO, which commonly lasts 180 days for employee stock ownership, during which employees cannot trade for cash regardless of stock price fluctuations; secondly, the cost of exercising options, with most employee stock ownership being in the form of options requiring personal upfront funding, and only the net amount after costs represents actual gains; and thirdly, the high tax costs, with exercising options triggering tax obligations, meaning that after layering multiple taxes and fees, the actual net gains will shrink significantly.
Historical experiences have confirmed this risk; Snowflake's stock price doubled on its IPO day, but employees could only unlock trades after six months, during which the stock price fluctuated over 30%, leading to massive reductions in paper wealth for many employees. For SpaceX employees, the IPO pricing represents the peak of their wealth, and stock price fluctuations following the lock-up period will directly determine their ultimate actual gains.
Four, an extreme chip structure: 4.2% ultra-low circulating supply, stock price elasticity hides the risk of collapse.
To understand the future stock price trajectory and wealth logic of SpaceX, the key lies in comprehending its extreme chip structure. This IPO issued 555.6 million new shares, corresponding to a total share count of approximately 13.11 billion shares, with the newly issued shares making up only 4.2%, meaning less than 5% of the shares are freely tradable in the secondary market, while over 95% of shares are in a long-term locked state.
The ultra-low circulating supply endows SpaceX's stock price with extreme sensitivity to funds. For conventional stocks, ample circulating chips can buffer capital shocks and smooth stock price fluctuations; while SpaceX's mere 4.2% circulating supply means that even a small net buy can trigger massive gains, with stock price rises being far more elastic than ordinary large-cap stocks. A simple calculation shows that if the stock price rises by 10%, the circulating market value will increase by $7.5 billion; if it rises by 30%, the increase in circulating market value could reach $22.5 billion, with the capital leverage effect being extremely significant.
However, the flip side of high elasticity is high risk; after the lock-up period ends, the market will face tremendous selling pressure. In the future, as massive shares held by employees, early-stage investors, and founding shareholders are unlocked, over 95% of the locked chips will flood into the secondary market. At that point, the narrow circulating supply will struggle to absorb the immense selling pressure, easily triggering significant stock price corrections.
Compared to the stable turnover rates and liquidity of mature companies like Apple, SpaceX's chip structure is extremely unstable. In the short term, the scarcity of circulating chips will support the stock price's continuous rise, amplifying the valuation upside; but in the long term, the risks of selling pressure from unlock waves and equity dilution will become the core hidden dangers suppressing the stock price.
Five, a preview of AI giants going public: ultra-high valuations generate wealth, but secondary market validation is even harder.
The wealth creation paradigm of SpaceX is also applicable to today's top AI companies riding high on valuations. Currently, both top AI companies remain unlisted, but their private valuations have reached or even surpassed traditional tech giants, and future IPOs could trigger a new wave of wealth creation.
Currently, leading AI firms' private valuations have all surpassed $800 billion, with annual revenue scales stabilizing in the $25 billion-$30 billion range. Based on the common employee options pool ratio of 10%-15% among Silicon Valley unicorns, the total value of employee stock ownership in these two firms could reach at least $85 billion, and even exceed $140 billion. Even with the most conservative estimates, the total value of employee stock ownership in AI firms is nearly 20 times that of SpaceX.
The core reason for the disparity in wealth creation scales lies in the equity distribution structure. SpaceX's equity is highly concentrated among its founders, with employee stock ownership significantly compressed; whereas AI-native companies have streamlined personnel and more dispersed equity distribution, allowing employees to share in the valuation upside much more.
However, the difficulty of cashing in paper wealth for AI firms is higher than for SpaceX. Currently, leading AI companies are trading at sales multiples generally exceeding 30 times, far above SpaceX's less than 10 times valuation multiple, indicating a significant valuation bubble. Past instances of AI computing power companies experiencing drastic valuation drops post-IPO have already demonstrated that the secondary market has a very low tolerance for high valuations, and the business model of high capital expenditure and low profitability efficiency struggles to support the ultra-high valuations seen in the private equity stage.
Six, computing power income is a double-edged sword: impressive revenue cannot mask the ongoing bleeding dilemma.
The core growth narrative behind SpaceX's ultra-high valuation comes from xAI's AI computing power leasing business. Currently, xAI has locked in long-term power contracts with two top clients, with annual leasing income reaching $26 billion, serving as the company's core growth engine.
Looking at the on-paper data, the $26 billion annualized revenue from computing power is enough to cover xAI's $6.4 billion annual loss, making the business growth logic seem straightforward. However, deeper financial data reveals a critical hidden danger: xAI's annual capital expenditure is as high as $30.8 billion, far exceeding the $26 billion revenue scale, creating an annual funding gap of nearly $5 billion that requires continuous support from the parent company or external financing to keep it running.
Moreover, the stability of the computing power business carries significant uncertainty. Currently, the market only knows the monthly leasing amounts between the two parties, while contract terms, renewal clauses, and early termination conditions remain unclear. Additionally, ongoing high capital expenditures from GPU purchases, data center construction, and consumption of electricity and water create rigid long-term costs. If major clients terminate contracts or reduce orders, xAI's revenue system could collapse instantly, further worsening its ongoing losses.
This also means that SpaceX's AI growth story, which underpins its high valuation, is essentially a cyclical model of 'high revenue, high losses, high investment', and has yet to form a healthy profitability loop.
Seven, the ultimate test: the real market game begins after the lock-up.
In summary, SpaceX's trillion-dollar valuation, trillion-dollar fortune, and wealth creation for all are all based on paper projections from the IPO day's pricing, and all the shiny data has not been validated by the secondary market in the long term. The ultra-low circulating supply leading to short-term stock price benefits, the false prosperity of AI computing power business, the highly concentrated equity structure, and the massive ongoing losses all contribute to the current valuation bubble.
The success on the first day of trading is just the starting point; the real test comes after the lock-up period ends. When massive locked shares are released, when the stability of the AI computing power business revenue and the authenticity of profitability are continuously validated, and when the market removes its short-term speculative heat, only then will SpaceX's true valuation, Musk's real wealth, and the actual earnings of thousands of employees finally materialize.
This global capital feast is ultimately not just a simple miracle of wealth creation, but a precise mathematical game about liquidity, valuation, and business models.