Elon Musk eyes $10 trillion net worth ahead of SpaceX IPO

Elon Musk is talking about a $10 trillion fortune while Wall Street is already making room for SpaceX before its expected IPO.

Speaking on X, Elon answered Peter H. Diamandis, the founder of the XPrize Foundation, after Peter said Elon had crossed about $800 billion, or around 2.7% of the entire U.S. GDP. Elon wrote, “$10T or bust.” Peter tied the size of that wealth to John D. Rockefeller in 1913 and said, “Rockefeller had oil. Elon has the future.”

The bigger story is the money chase around SpaceX, the private rocket and satellite company that could list at around $1.5 trillion.

Nearly 200 institutional investors from major Wall Street funds recently traveled to Texas for a SpaceX pitch, some fund managers have already set aside money for SpaceX, deciding how much they can buy, and looking at what they may need to sell. Some are weighing cuts to big tech positions, including Tesla (TSLA), to free up cash.

Retail traders are watching the Tesla (TSLA) side while all this plays out. On Stocktwits, sentiment around TSLA was listed as extremely bullish, though message volume was low. SpaceX sentiment sat at bearish, with extremely low chatter.

One Stocktwits user asked, “For real tho, why doesn’t Elon just pay for his own Tesla infrastructure? No more regulatory hurdles or whatever these ppl wanna call the delays.”

Another trader said, “$400 open [for TSLA] tomorrow. Then $420 by the end of the week.” A third wrote, “$TSLA Love how they drop it a little bit from market chatter,, Sweden up 111% and Norway down 61%.. see you at 400 today.”

Tesla (TSLA) is down 13% so far this year, and it is the second-worst performer in the Mag7.

SpaceX gives Elon voting power that can keep him in charge after the IPO

SpaceX is telling IPO investors that nobody can remove Elon as CEO or board chairman unless he agrees through the voting setup tied to his shares.

A filing excerpt gotten by Reuters says Elon can lose those roles only through a vote by holders of Class B shares. Those shares will carry 10 votes each, and Elon is expected to control them after the listing.

That means any serious attempt to push Elon out would run through the same voting power he controls. Nice little corporate circle, if anyone needed one. The filing also says that if Elon keeps a large part of his Class B common stock for a long time, he could keep control over who joins or leaves most of the board.

SpaceX plans to use a dual-class stock structure. That type of setup is common in founder-led tech listings because it gives founders and early backers more control than normal public investors.

But this one goes further because public company boards usually keep the formal right to remove a chief executive, even when the founder has enough votes to shape the final result.

Corporate governance experts said the real force of the clause will depend on SpaceX’s original legal documents. Still, the package gives Elon something close to a personal veto over any attempt to remove him.

SpaceX also warned IPO buyers that this structure “will limit or preclude your ability to influence corporate matters and the election of our directors.”

OpenAI puts Greg Brockman on the stand as Elon-OpenAI trial continues

Elon is also fighting OpenAI in court. Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s co-founder and president, is expected to testify Monday in Oakland in the California case Elon brought against the makers of ChatGPT.

Elon wants his AI rivals pushed back into a non-profit foundation model, and is suing OpenAI, Greg, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, claiming they broke a charitable trust and made money in a way they should not have.

OpenAI’s lawyers filed a document Sunday night saying Elon contacted Greg around April 25, about two days before the trial started, to ask about a possible settlement.

Greg answered that both sides could drop their claims. Elon then replied, “By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America. If you insist, so it will be.”

OpenAI’s lawyers want the court to let them question Greg about that exchange.

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