- SpaceX IPO expected at $135 per share, valuing company at about $1.77 trillion
- Around 4,400 current and former employees may become millionaires post-IPO
- Approximately 400 employees could hold stock worth more than $100 million
SpaceX employees could see a massive payday if the company goes public, with around 4,400 workers expected to become millionaires through their stock holdings.
The IPO price is expected to be $135 per share. At that price, investors would value the entire company at about $1.77 trillion. At that price, even employees with relatively small stock holdings could see their stakes become worth more than $1 million.
More than 4,400 current and former employees are likely to become millionaires after the IPO, according to the NY Times. Around 400 employees could hold stock worth more than $100 million.
Andrew Benson, the CEO of Hill.com told NYT that in most IPOs, the biggest financial gains usually go to the company's founders and a small group of top executives. They are often the only people who become billionaires when a company goes public.
Usually, only 5 percent to 10 percent of IPO shares are set aside for retail investors, while the majority go to large institutions such as mutual funds, pension funds and investment firms. For the SpaceX IPO, however, as much as 30 percent of the shares could be reserved for retail investors.
"It's rare to have as many as 400 people with more than $100 million in assets. It means that an enormous amount of wealth was created at SpaceX," he said.
Trevor Hise joined the company in 2011. At the time, SpaceX was much smaller and far from the global powerhouse it is today. As part of his compensation, he received more than 100,000 shares. If the IPO price is $135 per share, those shares would be worth at least $13.5 million.
"SpaceX has compensated employees more with equity than cash, so a large portion of assets had not been liquidated. After the listing, there is a high possibility that a large influx of funds will flow into the real estate market," said Hannah Jones, a senior economist at real estate information firm Realtor.com
Another notable feature is Fidelity's lower eligibility requirement. For many high-profile IPOs, investors often need to have $100,000 to $500,000 in their accounts to qualify for an allocation. For SpaceX, investors with as little as $2,000 in their Fidelity accounts may be eligible to participate.
Musk owns about 42 percent of SpaceX, which means he holds nearly half of the company. If SpaceX is valued at $1.77 trillion after its IPO, Musk's stake alone would be worth around $740 billion.
SpaceX's was valued at $800 billion last year, but that jumped to $1.25 trillion after it merged with Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, in February. The company says it could raise as much as $75 billion through its IPO. That would make it the largest stock market debut in history.
