Elon Musk says he always wanted his SpaceX employees to get rich — and now thousands of them are millionaires
· Business Insider
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- Elon Musk says thousands of SpaceX employees are probably millionaires after its blockbuster IPO.
- Musk said he gave stock to workers to incentivize them and give them a stake in SpaceX's success.
- The Tesla and SpaceX CEO hopes to send thousands of people to the moon and Mars before 2040.
Elon Musk says SpaceX's blockbuster valuation has likely turned thousands of his employees into millionaires.
During a Wednesday interview on "The Sean Hannity Show," Musk was asked about a former SpaceX welder who was granted stock that soared to over $1 million in value after the company went public in June with a roughly $2 trillion market capitalization.
"It's not just one welder, it's several thousand people who were working on the production line, and if they started at the company relatively early, then probably their stock is worth over a million dollars at this point," Musk told stand-in host Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over the phone.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, whose personal wealth briefly crossed $1 trillion following SpaceX's IPO, said: "I've always had the philosophy that everyone at the company should receive stock in the company, so that they can participate in the upside of the company."
"It's great for aligning incentives as well, so as the company prospers, then the people at the company, the employees, also prosper," he added.
SpaceX didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ahead of SpaceX's June 12 listing, Andrew Benson, the founder of pre-IPO trading platform Hill Markets, estimated the IPO would mint 4,400 new millionaires and over 400 centimillionaires.
Business Insider's Tom Carter spoke to a former SpaceX employee who said the company awarded its workers with stock options when they joined the company, at their annual reviews, and when they were promoted.
Employees were also allowed to sell some of their holdings to the company or investors in private liquidity events, usually held twice a year, the former employee said.
SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell and her husband have moved to expand the number of beneficiaries of SpaceX's success by donating roughly $300 million worth of the company's stock to Trump Accounts — a government program intended to open an account with $1,000 in it for every American child born between the start of 2025 and the end of 2028. The gift won praise from Trump on Truth Social.
SpaceX stock jumped from its IPO price of $135 to over $200 in the days following its public debut, but has fallen to below $148 as of Wednesday's close.
In addition to discussing the IPO's financial benefits, Musk spoke with Abbott about his long-term ambitions for SpaceX.
Musk said he hopes that in 10 years' time, the company will have "established a base on the moon" and "enabled thousands, if not tens of thousands of people" to go there.
"We want to make the things that people see in science fiction, not fiction — we want to make them real," Musk said, adding that SpaceX's Starship system is "designed to carry ultimately tens of thousands of tons to the moon, to create effectively a city on the moon, and ultimately a city on Mars as well."
Musk added that "if things go well," SpaceX might send the first humans to Mars in about five years, and thousands of people to the red planet in 10 or 12 years.
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