Co-Founder, Technoking of Tesla, Chief Executive Officer & Director, Tesla
Elon Musk reacts as he becomes world's first trillionaire following record-setting SpaceX IPO launch
Elon Musk's SpaceX began trading as "SPCX" on Friday after completing the largest initial public offering in history. The IPO launch has made SpaceX's CEO, already the world's richest person, a trillionaire. Asset TV's Kristin Myers joins CBS News with her take.
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About Elon Musk
Elon Musk recently oversaw SpaceX’s public listing on the Nasdaq on June 12, 2026, which he said was the largest initial public offering in the history of capital markets. During the event, Musk stated that he had originally given SpaceX “less than a 10% chance of succeeding at all” and recalled telling people, “Look, we’re probably going to fail, but you know, we should give it a try because if we don’t… we will never be a truly spacefaring civilization.” He described SpaceX’s mission as “to take the fiction out of science fiction” and said the company aims to make humanity multi-planetary, adding, “We want to be able to take anyone who wants to go to the moon, anyone who wants to go to Mars… not just a few astronauts.” The IPO was widely reported to have made Musk the world’s first trillionaire. In addition to the IPO, Musk discussed SpaceX’s plans to build AI satellites and space-based data centers. In an interview with SpaceX employees in Bastrop, Texas, he said that the company’s AI satellite is “actually much simpler than a Starlink satellite” and noted that the current reference design calls for Nvidia Rubin chips. He also spoke about a “terrafab” facility that he said would be approximately 100 million square feet, roughly 10 times the size of Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas, and discussed using a mass driver on the moon to launch materials into deep space. Separately, Musk oversaw the final delivery of Tesla’s Model S and Model X vehicles, which he called a “bittersweet moment,” emphasizing that those cars “showed that an electric car could actually be the best car of any period.”
Transcript (10 segments)
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
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Narrator0:02
If the opening bell sounds a little different today, that is because we wanted to bring you to the floor of the NASDAQ, where SpaceX executives are ringing in today's trading. They're celebrating the launch of their highly anticipated historic IPO.
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Reporter0:16
Let's take a live look then at where things open on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Kind of positivity out of the gate, up half a percentage point. As Kelly has noted, you got to see where it ends and where the day goes. SpaceX isn't the only major market driver today either. We've seen oil prices steadily falling since the president announced a potential memo that could be signed within a matter of days.
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Host0:40
And joining us this morning is Kristen Myers, who is the ETF editor-in-chief at Asset TV. Really excited to talk to you on a day like this, right? SpaceX, we're finally going to get a major IPO. And I want to get your take, right? Because SpaceX is a really interesting company. Everyone is focusing on the space part of it, but this also has a number of other components. You have the artificial intelligence component. You have formerly Twitter X as part of this company. How do you think investors are going to look at this on such a significant day?
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Kristen Myers1:17
So when it comes to anything that Elon Musk is involved in, we saw this with Tesla. I think we're definitely going to be seeing this now with SpaceX. You find that it's not so much investor interest in the company, although I think that is definitely going to exist more so with SpaceX than we previously saw with Tesla. But it is almost a proxy bet on Elon Musk and his essential genius as a business leader, but also as a tech giant. So I think that a lot of folks who are Elon Musk fans are definitely going to be piling into this, but space is literally the next frontier. We have seen billions of dollars of inflows into ETFs, into index funds that are tracking anything space related as everyone just tries to get a small piece of SpaceX. And since it is going to be listed on the NASDAQ, if you are an owner of any sort of NASDAQ 100 fund, you will also now be an investor in SpaceX even if you never buy the stock.
And Kristen, Elon Musk just spoke, so we want to quickly play a bit of sound about what he's saying this morning.
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Elon Musk2:23
It is certainly hard to believe that a little company that started in a warehouse in El Segundo is now going public with the largest IPO ever. Let me tell you, if people had told me this was going to happen, I was like, 'Man, you must be smoking some really good crack because I think this company's going to fail.' I gave SpaceX less than a 10% chance of succeeding at all. In fact, I told people, 'Look, we're probably going to fail, but we should give it a try because if there's not a new company that enters space, we will never be a truly spacefaring civilization.' While the other aerospace companies build good rockets and everything, they were simply not pursuing the technology necessary to make life multiplanetary, to make Star Trek, to make the exciting science fiction futures we've read about real. That is what SpaceX is all about: to take the fiction out of science fiction and create an exciting, inspiring future for everyone. We want to be able to take anyone who wants to go to the moon, anyone who wants to go to Mars or anywhere in the solar system, and maybe beyond the solar system at some point. We want to be able to take you there, not just a few astronauts. I mean, literally, whoever you are watching this, SpaceX wants to be able to take you to the moon, take you to Mars, and ultimately beyond. I'm confident at this point that with the incredible team we have here at SpaceX, we will do that for you.
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Host4:40
All right, that fresh sound from Elon Musk just into our newsroom. I wasn't expecting a crack joke from the leader, but that's Elon Musk, right? He's a singular personality. Kristen Myers is still with us. Kristen, his ability as a visionary and to really excite people really is unmatched. But when it comes to an investment, $135 a share, is it overvalued? And what are the fundamentals for our viewers who might be considering investing their own money - is it wise?
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Kristen Myers5:11
Yeah, that's a really good question and that's actually the $1.75 trillion question around the valuation. So just for the numbers: this company is supposed to debut at a $1.75 trillion valuation, which would make it the largest IPO in history and would also make SpaceX the largest company. We have about $5 billion worth of losses last year on just over $18 billion of revenue. We are on track for net losses again in 2026 - over $4 billion in net losses in 2026. So what is the investment case? The investment case is again that space is the next frontier, and it's not just about rocket ships. It's not just about fueling those rocket ships. It is about AI, building data centers on other planets, government systems. So we have huge government spending when it comes to space, and that all folds into this SpaceX story. But this company is not without concerns. There are concerns around the governance, around the structure. There are concerns around that valuation. Most companies when they premiere have a lot of stock available. We don't have that in this IPO, which means we could see artificial demand and inflation in the price.
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Host6:30
Yeah, and I think the point you made earlier that people will also trade on this thinking just about Elon Musk - he obviously has been very vocal on social media, he has been involved in politics, and that really made the Tesla stock go up and down. So that's something to keep in mind when you're looking at SpaceX. Kristen Myers, thank you so much for breaking it down for us and joining us on such a historic day.
Yeah, thank you, Kristen. Great to see you.