SpaceX’s expected stock market debut is set to create massive wealth not only for Elon Musk and early investors, but also for thousands of current and former employees who received company shares as part of their compensation.
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The rocket company’s initial public offering is expected to value SpaceX at about $1.77 trillion, making it one of the biggest market debuts in history and positioning Musk, 54, to potentially become the world’s first trillionaire.
But beyond Musk, venture capital firms and private investors, the IPO is also expected to deliver life-changing wealth to employees who joined the company in its early and uncertain years.
One of them is Trevor Hise, a former SpaceX launch engineer, who joined the company after college in 2011 despite pressure from his parents to take a more stable job at General Electric.
Hise stayed at SpaceX for 12 years and accumulated more than 100,000 shares during his time at the company.
With SpaceX expected to go public at $135 per share, his holdings could be worth at least $13.5 million.
“The magnitude of this has been ridiculous,” said Hise, now 37, who considers himself semiretired.
SpaceX, founded by Musk, has grown from an uncertain start-up into the world’s most dominant private space company, with major roles in satellite launches, crewed missions, Starlink internet services and government space contracts.
The company’s IPO is expected to unleash generational wealth among employees who held on to their shares during years of risk, rocket failures and doubts over whether the company would ever go public.
According to an analysis by Hill.com, a San Francisco-based investment platform that has facilitated trading in private SpaceX shares, more than 4,400 current and former SpaceX employees are likely to become millionaires from the IPO.
The analysis also estimated that about 400 employees could make $100 million or more.
“With most IPOs, you’re usually only going to see the founders become billionaires,” said Andrew Benson, founder and chief executive of Hill.com.
“It’s uncommon to have 400 people at that threshold. It speaks to the enormous wealth that’s being created here.”
Another former employee, Gavin Petit, joined SpaceX in 2012 as an engineer overseeing launches.
At the time, he received several thousand shares in addition to his $80,000 salary, with each share valued at $13.80.
Over the years, Petit chose to take company bonuses in more shares, even though the decision was risky because SpaceX’s rockets were still unproven and the future of the company was uncertain.
He later sold some shares during employee liquidity events to pay off his house in Denver, but retained more than 50,000 shares.
Petit, who left SpaceX in 2023 to join Katalyst Space Technologies, described the IPO as a life-changing moment.
“The offering is the Coca-Cola or Google IPO of my time,” he said, adding that it felt like winning the lottery.
Not every employee held on to their stock.
Some former workers reportedly sold their shares years earlier, believing SpaceX would never go public because Musk had often criticised the burden of running publicly traded companies.
According to multiple SpaceX workers, some early employees are now filled with regret after reportedly trading or selling shares that could have become worth millions.
For others, even shorter periods at SpaceX could still produce significant wealth.
Helvin Bacareza, who began working at SpaceX’s South Texas location in 2020 as a global supply manager, left after two years but said he accumulated a substantial amount of stock.
Asked whether he had sold any shares, he laughed and replied, “I’m not an idiot,” adding that he plans to keep holding them after the IPO.
For Hise, the decision to remain at SpaceX against his parents’ advice has now become one of the defining choices of his life.
He grew up in Cocoa, Florida, where his mother sold furniture and his father worked as a plumber at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.
At the time he joined the company, he said many people believed SpaceX was an unproven start-up that might not survive.
But as the company’s valuation grew, so did the value of his shares.
Hise said he occasionally sold some stock to pay for his wedding and make a down payment on a home, but kept most of his holdings.
After leaving SpaceX in 2023, he invested in real estate ventures.
With the IPO approaching, he and his wife have hired a financial planner and are setting up a foundation to donate part of their new wealth.
Asked about his parents, who once wanted him to choose General Electric instead, Hise said they are now proud.
“They’re very proud,” he said.
The SpaceX IPO is expected to rank among the most consequential wealth-creation events in modern Silicon Valley history, transforming not only Musk’s fortune but also the financial futures of engineers, launch workers, managers and early employees who bet on a company many once considered too risky to survive.
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