Elon Musk SPCX

Founder, CEO, Chief Technology Officer & Board Chair, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX)

HISTORIC MOMENT: Elon Musk, SpaceX Ring Nasdaq Opening Bell as Historic Trading Debut Begins | AF1G

📅 Jun 12, 2026 DRM News 17 MIN 5 SEGMENTS · 3 SPEAKERS

Elon Musk and SpaceX celebrated the company's historic Nasdaq debut by ringing the opening bell from both New York City and ...

What Elon Musk said

Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.

Elon Musk said he gave SpaceX less than a 10% chance of succeeding when he founded it in 2002, and he told people the company would probably fail, but he believed a new space company was necessary to make life multi-planetary. He said other aerospace companies built good rockets but were not pursuing the technology needed to make humanity a space-bearing civilization. Musk said SpaceX's mission is to take the fiction out of science fiction and create an exciting future, with the goal of taking anyone who wants to go to the moon, Mars, or beyond, not just a few astronauts. He expressed confidence that the SpaceX team will achieve this. He also praised Gwynne Shotwell as an incredible partner and one of the first to join the company, and noted the company started in a warehouse in El Segundo.

Key takeaways

Musk said he gave SpaceX less than a 10% chance of succeeding at all when he founded it.
Musk said SpaceX's goal is to take anyone who wants to go to the moon, Mars, or beyond, not just astronauts.
Musk said other aerospace companies were not pursuing technology needed to make life multi-planetary.
Musk said SpaceX started in a warehouse in El Segundo and is now the largest IPO ever.
Musk expressed confidence the SpaceX team will make life multi-planetary.

Numbers and commitments

Figure	What it refers to	Type	At
less than 10%	Chance Musk gave SpaceX of succeeding at founding	metric	7:41

Chapters

0:00Opening remarks and history
7:41Musk's initial doubts about SpaceX
10:56Mission to make life multi-planetary

Questions asked in this interview

1:30We did that, too, doubters, right?

Narrator 0:22 ↗

Using artificial intelligence to strengthen SpaceX's space and connectivity platforms, transforming data into actionable intelligence at a global scale. The company begins trading today on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX in what stands as the largest public offering in the history of capital markets.

As the home of innovation and the home of the innovation economy, Nasdaq is incredibly proud to be SpaceX's partner as it builds the physical and digital infrastructure of the future. Your mission is now backed by the financial engines of the public markets with access to every investor everywhere. Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team. We cannot wait to see what comes next. And now, please join me in welcoming SpaceX's president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell for her opening remarks.

2 more exchanges in this transcript

Cite this transcript

APA, MLA, BibTeX

APA

Musk, E. (2026, June 12). HISTORIC MOMENT: Elon Musk, SpaceX Ring Nasdaq Opening Bell as Historic Trading Debut Begins | AF1G [Interview transcript]. DRM News. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/981875/

MLA

Elon Musk. "HISTORIC MOMENT: Elon Musk, SpaceX Ring Nasdaq Opening Bell as Historic Trading Debut Begins | AF1G." DRM News, 12 Jun. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/981875/.

BibTeX

@misc{musk2026_981875,
  author       = {Elon Musk},
  title        = {HISTORIC MOMENT: Elon Musk, SpaceX Ring Nasdaq Opening Bell as Historic Trading Debut Begins | AF1G},
  howpublished = {Interview transcript, DRM News. CEOInterviews.AI},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = {jun},
  url          = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/981875/},
  note         = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}

▶

Key Quotes (3)

“I gave SpaceX less than a 10% chance of succeeding at all, to be clear. In fact, I told people this. I was like, we're probably going to fail, but you know, we should give it a try because if we don't, if there's not a new company that enters space, we will never be a truly space-bearing civilization.”

▶ 8:49

“While the other aerospace companies, they build good rockets and everything, they were simply not pursuing the technology that's necessary to make life multi-planetary. To make Star Trek, to make the exciting science fiction futures that we've read about real. And that's what SpaceX is all about. It's to take the fiction out of science fiction.”

▶ 9:12

“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, you, literally you.”

▶ 9:45

Mentioned in this interview

Gwynne Shotwell President & Chief Operating Officer (COO): Musk praised her as an incredible partner and one of the first to join the company.

El Segundo: Musk noted SpaceX started in a warehouse there.

Earlier, on the same topics

“After PayPal, I was curious why we haven't sent anyone to Mars. I found no real plan on NASA's website, so I decided to start SpaceX in 2002 to advance rocket technology to the point where we could send people to Mars.”

Jun 18, 2025 at 13:20 →

“Starting SpaceX was a gamble with maybe a 1% to 10% chance of success. The first three rocket flights failed, and if the fourth hadn't worked, it would have been curtains.”

Jun 19, 2025 at 17:00 →

“I'll tell you a little bit just about the purpose of SpaceX. It's like we want to make Star Trek real. Okay. We want to make Starfleet Academy real so that it's not always science fiction, but one day the science fiction turns to science fact. And we have spaceships going through space, big spaceshi”

Jan 12, 2026 at 1:19:09 →

“The only way to access the energy of the sun is to extend beyond Earth. Earth is really a tiny dust mote in a vast darkness. The next step beyond Earth data centers is our Earth orbital data centers. We'll be launching with SpaceX orbital data centers at the 100 to 200 gigawatt per year level. Ultim”

Feb 11, 2026 at 42:35 →

Every Elon Musk interview →

Newsletters that week

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Gwynne Shotwell - SpaceX President: On Starlink Supply Gaps, the AI Satellite Flywheel, and Elon's Governance LockPodcast Alpha · Podcast Alpha · Jun 18, 2026
SpaceX Goes Public: The $75 Billion IPO Reshaping Global MarketsGenuine Impact - Because your money deserves better · Genuine Impact · Jun 18, 2026
Here's the real issue with the SpaceX IPOThe Pinpoint Press, with Rick Newman · The Pinpoint Press, with Rick Newman · Jun 18, 2026
The Worst Thing About Elon MuskSalty Politics with Julie Roginsky · Julie Roginsky · Jun 18, 2026

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All Elon Musk transcripts →

Also at Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX)

Gwynne ShotwellPresident & Chief Operating Officer (COO)

All Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) executives →

About Elon Musk

In October 2026, Elon Musk spoke at Tesla's Q3 earnings call, describing the quarter as very strong and stating that demand for the company's vehicles was exceeding production. He said the biggest driver for demand was its full self-driving software and indicated that Tesla would begin sharing more metrics around it. Regarding the Optimus humanoid robot, Musk said he remained convinced it would be "the biggest product on Earth," while tempering expectations by noting it would take about a year or more to reach an annualized production rate of 20,000 units per week. He also revealed a new version of the Tesla Roadster at an event, describing it as a flying car capable of exceeding 230 miles per hour and reaching speeds around Mach 0.5, with production expected to begin in 2028. Musk characterized the vehicle as a collaboration between Tesla and SpaceX engineers. Musk also appeared at a White House meeting on superintelligence where he discussed the positive potential of AI, describing the most likely outcome as an "age of abundance" with "universal high income," and said jobs would evolve as they had throughout history. He participated in an America.gov event with Jensen Huang, calling for scaling energy generation and chip production to compete with China. He also discussed AI safety, proposing that major AI companies test each other's models before release, citing incidents of models attempting to escape their constraints. At a G20 technology meeting, he estimated that AI could increase the global economy by 20 to 30 percent and warned of a significant power shortfall for AI chips in 2027, noting that some companies were leasing compute from SpaceX to address immediate needs.

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