“From Lunchroom to MILLIONAIRE” - How SpaceX’s IPO Turned 4,400 Employees Into Millionaires

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:26)
SpaceX IPO could turn 4,400 employees into millionaires. Crazy, crazy story. Imagine you've been working at a company for all these years, and then all of a sudden, equity, equity, equity. And you're like, I don't know if I believe in equity. I don't know if I've seen anything happen with equity. And then all of a sudden, boom. Oh, I love equity.
I didn't know this is how it works. This is how it works. Well, here's a story.
Officially, Elon, as of a few hours ago, has worked 980 billion dollars. Today, in a couple hours, Elon will be the first trillionaire ever in the history of mankind, including some of these oil people, because even these oil families that got a trillion dollars, it's between 42 sons. So it's not like you're worth a trillion dollars. You're sharing it with 42 other sons or eight other sons. So let me read this to you. As Trevor Heiss was getting ready to graduate from college in 2011, his parents wanted him to take what they saw as a stable job at GE. Honey, go work at GE. But Mr. Heiss had landed an internship at a startup he loved. Against his parents' advice, he stayed for a full-time job at a young company. In the next 12 years, the startup was Elon Musk's SpaceX. Today, Mr. Heiss has more than 100,000 shares of SpaceX that he earned from his time working there with the rocket maker expected to go public. At $135 a share, Mr. Heiss' SpaceX stock officially worth $13.5 million.
SpaceX IPO is expected to make a lot of people rich, even richer. First in the queue is Mr. Musk, 54, which is likely to become the world's first trillionaire, but the group will gain life-changing wealth for the first time. SpaceX's current and former employees, the company has 22,000 employees and hundreds more left over the years. Some were hourly blue collar workers who toiled at launch sites, others sat for days straight in one's windowless office at SpaceX Industrial Complex in South Texas. For many, their work is about to pay off big time that the stock was part of their compensation. More than 4,400 current and SpaceX employees are likely to become millionaires of the IPO, and 400 are expected to earn a minimum VINY of $100 million or more. 33 or so employees that are non-C suites, non-directors, non-VP, non-managers are getting paid $2 to $400 million. Tom, $1.7 trillion, never such a thing has happened before. Why is this such a big deal?

**SPEAKER_3** (2:50)
It's a big deal because he's private and he built it. That's what the big deal is. If you're part of the, you know, I'll say this, but everybody knows what I mean when I say this. If you're part of the Lucky Sperm Club and you pop out as son number seven of the Sultan of Brunei or something, that really doesn't count.
You're being born into a family where the ATM of Earth just spits out money.

**SPEAKER_4** (3:11)
I like that, Tom. That's Silver Spoon mentality.

**SPEAKER_3** (3:13)
The ATM of Earth. He's done this himself. And you know, remember May 21st, 2025, I was looking up this morning just for kicks, 530 a.m. I was looking up negative stories about Elon Musk when he left the White House. Because I just wanted to remember that. It was all this. The Atlantic ran a story, the decline and fall of Elon Musk. May 21st, 2025 Oh, Lord, what will he do now? He's got to go back to work, figure out his company. Now he's going to be a trillionaire. But number one, it's private and he built it. And he built it despite doubt. He built it just that many entrepreneurs face doubt from family, doubt from investors, doubt from business partners. And he did it. That's why this is so big. And actually, I saw today, today Brad Gershner of Altimeter said that the magic number, I think, is 141.5.
At 141.5 on the stock, he is a trillionaire, which means just after it goes out, it's there. And so I think this is great. And this is what the big deal is, is because he's done it there. Now you're going to have all the pundits. We can talk about all the other stuff around this. But you have to remember what's also a big deal today.