New Delhi:
When SpaceX became public last week for the first time, it didn’t just create the largest IPO in history but also turned founder Elon Musk into the world’s first trillionaire on paper.
The company’s share price rose from $135 to $160.95 on its first trading day, increasing SpaceX’s market value to $2.11 trillion. As Musk owns nearly 46 per cent of the company, the value of his stake jumped from about $866 billion to approximately $1.03 trillion.
But Musk wasn’t the only big winner from SpaceX’s IPO.
Gwynne Shotwell has been SpaceX’s president for more than 20 years and manages the company’s day-to-day operations. As a longtime executive with company stock, she became one of the biggest beneficiaries of the IPO. She owns 12.6 million SpaceX shares, valued at more than $2 billion.
Several venture capital firms also made huge profits from their early investments in the company.
Venture capital firms such as Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital made billions of dollars as the value of their SpaceX shares increased.
Antonio Gracias and his investment firm, Valor Equity Partners, owned 6.7 per cent of the company’s shares. After SpaceX’s value surged, their stake became worth about $68 billion. This made Gracias the second-largest shareholder in SpaceX, behind only Elon Musk.
Andreessen Horowitz, co-founded by Marc Andreessen, held a SpaceX stake worth more than $10 billion at the IPO price.
The IPO also made thousands of SpaceX employees richer, according to Wall Street Journal. More than 4,400 current and former employees reportedly became millionaires because they owned company shares or stock options. Many of them had worked at SpaceX for years and kept their shares instead of selling them.
J Andre Lavoie, a former SpaceX engineer, left the company more than 10 years ago but kept his shares. At the IPO price, his stake was worth over $28 million. Maryellyn Musselman, 27, worked at SpaceX for two years and invested 10 percent of her salary in company shares. The IPO also increased the value of her investment.
Juan Hernandez, 42, started as a contractor at SpaceX. He sold some shares over the years to buy properties, but still owned shares worth about $880,000 at the IPO price.
Some university funds also benefitted from the IPO.
The University of North Carolina invested early through Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm, Founders Fund. SpaceX became such a successful investment that it made up about 10 percent of the university’s endowment fund.
The University of Virginia bought SpaceX shares between 2020 and 2021, when the company was valued at just $74 billion to $100 billion. After SpaceX’s value increased to trillions, the university’s investment also grew. Washington University in St Louis invested in SpaceX in 2018, accounting for more than 10 percent of the fund.
