SpaceX Just Made Elon Musk the First Trillionaire in History. Should You Buy the Stock?

Something happened today that's never happened before in history: A single person's net worth crossed $1 trillion. After shares of Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX), better known as SpaceX, hit the market this morning, CEO and Chief Engineer Elon Musk's fortune jumped from roughly $813 billion to more than $1 trillion.

The initial public offering (IPO) itself is record-shattering, too. SpaceX raised $75 billion -- more than twice the previous record -- and the company is now valued somewhere north of $2 trillion.

Elon Musk's trillionaire math

First, with all these massive numbers, it's important to remember that this is paper wealth, not cash. Musk doesn't have $1.3 trillion stuffed under a rather large mattress.

Here's a look at Musk's rough net worth and what makes up his record-setting fortune.

Data sources: CBS News, CNBC.

How Elon Musk went from billionaire to trillionaire

Elon Musk's path to $1.3 trillion has been equally mind-boggling to the size of the figure itself.

In 2013, Musk was worth "just" $2.7 billion, and as recently as 2020, that figure was around $25 billion. Tesla's pandemic run multiplied his net worth 9 times in under a year. He was worth more than $300 billion by the end of 2021.

There was some turbulence on the way up. Tesla's 65% drawdown in 2022, combined with the drag from the Twitter purchase by X Holdings, cut his fortune roughly in half.

But that was short-lived: Musk's net worth hit $400 billion by December 2024, was twice that by 2025, and is now $1.3 trillion.

For scale, John D. Rockefeller -- of Standard Oil fame and "robber baron" par excellence -- was worth roughly $435 billion in today's dollars if you look at his share of U.S. GDP. It's actually much lower if you simply adjust for inflation.

In fact, Musk is now wealthier than Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and Cornelius Vanderbilt -- the three richest Gilded Age industrialists -- combined.

Is SpaceX stock a buy after the IPO?

That's all well and good, but let's get to the point at hand: Should you buy SpaceX stock?

The stock is already up 25% from where it opened -- $150 -- which in turn was already up considerably from the original offering price of $135 a share. There's clearly a lot of interest here.

Before you jump in, though, consider what you're actually buying. SpaceX has three basic branches to its business: rockets, Starlink, and artificial intelligence (AI).

In terms of pure financials, Starlink is the real star. The satellite internet provider did $11.4 billion of the company's total $18.7 billion in revenue last year and is the only profitable arm -- and quite profitable at that, with nearly 40% operating margins.

Image source: Getty Images.

The launch segment brought in another $4.1 billion, but is struggling to make a profit. And finally, AI (which includes the social media platform X, formerly Twitter), did $3.2 billion in revenue. It's also burning cash at an alarming rate: about $1 billion a month.

All in all, 2025 saw SpaceX lose $4.94 billion on $18.7 billion in sales.

The bottom line on SpaceX stock

If you're buying the stock around $170, you're paying nearly 120 times sales. This is all about the future. You're essentially paying for a profitable Starlink, betting that the cash it generates can fund the rest of the business until it pays off.

While I understand the argument, I don't really buy the pitch. I'm not going to deny the incredible feat of building reusable rockets, nor Starlink's massive growth, but that's not worth the price you're paying today. I would avoid the stock unless the valuation comes back to earth.

Johnny Rice has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.