Portuguese 
Spanish 
6 min of reading 
0 comments 
On June 12, 2026, Elon Musk became the first trillionaire in human history after SpaceX’s IPO on Nasdaq raised $75 billion, the largest ever. With an estimated net worth of over $1.1 trillion, according to Forbes, Elon Musk alone surpasses the GDP of Taiwan, Ireland, Sweden, and Singapore combined.
Elon Musk woke up rich on Friday, June 12, 2026, but it was in the middle of the day that he crossed a threshold no human had crossed before. SpaceX, the rocket and satellite company he founded and controls, debuted on Nasdaq with the largest IPO in financial market history, raising $75 billion in a single offering at $135 per share, surpassing the previous record of Saudi Aramco, of $29 billion in 2019, as reported by Exame. With SpaceX’s valuation confirmed at around $1.77 trillion, Elon Musk’s stake in the company became worth approximately $866.5 billion. Combined with other assets, his total fortune exceeded $1.1 trillion, according to Forbes estimates cited by Exame.
Elon Musk is now the first trillionaire in history. The number is so large it’s hard to visualize. CNN Brazil and Exame gathered some comparisons to help: if Elon Musk spent $1 million a day, it would take 2,740 years to spend $1 trillion. With this fortune, according to CNN Brazil, he could give $100 to every person on the planet and still remain among the ten richest billionaires in the world, with a fortune exceeding $184 billion. Oxfam calculated that Elon Musk’s wealth grew by more than $550 billion in the last year, equivalent to more than $1 million per minute, as reported by CNN Brazil. To get the right scale: you need to add the fortunes of the four richest people in the world after Musk to get close to what he has alone, according to CNN Brazil.
The IPO that made Elon Musk cross the trillion line
SpaceX had been for years the largest private company in the world by market value before going public. The IPO on Nasdaq on June 12, 2026, formalized this value publicly with a pricing that no other company had achieved in an initial offering. The $75 billion raised by SpaceX in its debut surpassed not only Saudi Aramco, which had set the previous record in 2019 with $29 billion, but practically any other historical IPO reference, as published by Exame.
-
Cleaning teams doubted this beach robot until they saw it sifting the sand by itself; the equipment looks simple, uses solar energy, removes buried dirt, reduces manual effort, and is quietly changing the cleaning of tourist areas.
-
With 70 tons of rock removed by hand and an 800-year-old abandoned cave, a former businessman transforms a dark shelter into a modern home carved in the heart of the forest.
-
After a rivalry for the world record, an American builder creates a manned aircraft measuring only 3.35 meters, with a wingspan of 1.91 meters and weighing 114 kg, recognized by Guinness as the smallest monoplane ever flown.
-
End of traditional plaster? New phase change material panel gains ground in construction for storing heat, smoothing temperature peaks, and improving thermal comfort without taking up more space in internal walls.
SpaceX alone represents almost 80% of Elon Musk’s total wealth, according to data cited by Exame. Tesla, the electric vehicle manufacturer that Musk also leads, accounts for approximately $165 billion, about one-fifth of the total. In four months, according to Forbes cited by Exame, Elon Musk went from $800 billion to $1.1 trillion, the largest accumulation of wealth in such a short period in history. On the following Monday, June 15, a 7% rise in SpaceX shares increased Elon Musk’s fortune to over $1.2 trillion, according to Exame. In three days, Elon Musk accumulated more than most billionaires accumulate in a lifetime.
SpaceX worth more than most countries
SpaceX was valued at about $1.77 trillion at the IPO, as reported by Exame. For reference: Brazil’s annual GDP in 2024 was around $2.1 trillion. Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite company is therefore worth something close to the entire value that Brazil produces in a year. This is not a metaphorical comparison. It is the metric that market analysts use to position the size of SpaceX in relation to other known economic references.
Exame also details Elon Musk’s journey to reaching a trillion: it started with Zip2, an online maps company sold to Compaq in 1999 for $307 million, earning him $22 million. He then founded X.com, which became PayPal. Each subsequent bet was bigger and riskier. SpaceX almost went bankrupt multiple times before becoming the most valuable company in Elon Musk’s portfolio. The journey was neither linear nor guaranteed: there were billion-dollar losses along the way, as Exame itself highlights in an analysis published on June 15, 2026.
Elon Musk’s fortune versus the Brazilian stock exchange and the world’s largest economies
When Elon Musk’s wealth was still around $600 billion, equivalent to R$ 3.25 trillion at the time, it would already be enough to acquire the ten most valuable companies on the B3 or buy the mining company Vale eleven times, according to calculations published by Somosnoticia based on data from early 2025. Now, with more than $1.1 trillion, the difference is even greater and any comparative calculation with the Brazilian stock exchange results in an even more significant disproportion.
On a global scale, CNN Brazil points out that Elon Musk’s individual fortune surpasses the GDP of entire countries: Taiwan ($977 billion), Ireland ($779 billion), Sweden ($760 billion), and Singapore ($660 billion), in addition to South Africa, Musk’s homeland ($480 billion). These are economies with populations of tens of millions of people, with infrastructure, industry, exports, and decades of economic history, surpassed by the wealth of a single individual. Elon Musk’s fortune is not a financial abstraction: it is concretely greater than everything Taiwan produces in a year.
How Brazilian investors can access SpaceX through B3
With SpaceX’s IPO on Nasdaq, Brazilian investors also gained access to Elon Musk’s company through the local market. SpaceX’s BDRs are traded on B3 under the code SPCX34, with a parity of 1 to 15, allowing access to the company with disbursements between R$ 50 and R$ 70 per receipt, reducing the entry barrier for individual investors, as explained by Exame.
It is important for Brazilian investors considering this type of asset to evaluate the specific associated risks. SpaceX is a space technology company with business models that depend on government contracts, successful launches, and the expansion of services like Starlink. The inherent volatility of the sector and the concentration of power in the figure of Elon Musk are factors analysts often highlight when evaluating this type of investment. The access facilitated by B3 resolves the entry barrier but does not eliminate the risks associated with the asset.
Elon Musk and the concentration of wealth that divides opinions
Oxfam, an international organization dedicated to combating inequality, calculated that Elon Musk’s wealth grew by more than US$ 550 billion in the last year, equivalent to more than US$ 1 million per minute, as reported by CNN Brazil. This data is frequently cited by organizations studying income inequality as evidence of the disproportionate accumulation of wealth at the top of the global economic pyramid.
The discussion about what it means for a single individual to accumulate more wealth than entire countries’ economies transcends the financial debate. It involves questions about tax structures, market regulation, distribution of value generated by tech companies, and the role of governments in the face of fortunes that surpass the GDP of nations. Elon Musk and his supporters argue that the wealth reflects value created for shareholders, customers, and technological advancement. Critics point out that such magnitude of concentration redefines what is possible in terms of political and economic influence by a single private actor. The debate has no simple answer, and the milestone of the first trillionaire in history will likely intensify it.
Elon Musk became the first trillionaire in history on June 12, 2026. A fortune that surpasses the economies of entire countries, which could give US$ 100 to every person on the planet and still have more than US$ 184 billion left. Does this represent the power of technological innovation or is it a sign that something is wrong with how the world distributes wealth? Leave your opinion in the comments.
Be the first to react!