Stock-market fortunes can change quickly when ownership is measured in billions of shares. Elon Musk got a fresh reminder of that yesterday when SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX | SPCX Price Prediction) jumped 10% to $146.15, adding roughly $66 billion to his wealth in a single trading session.
Two months ago, the SpaceX IPO briefly pushed Musk above the $1 trillion threshold. Then the stock collapsed below $105 and took his trillionaire crown with it. Now the comeback is underway — and Musk may need only one more 20% rally to reclaim it.
SpaceX Has Already Made One Big Comeback
SpaceX priced its June 12 IPO at $135 a share and opened at $150. The stock quickly climbed, eventually reaching $225.64 on June 16 and briefly making Musk the world’s first trillionaire, according to Bloomberg and Forbes.
Then gravity took over. SpaceX eventually fell below $105, wiping hundreds of billions of dollars from Musk’s paper fortune.
That decline has now reversed as SpaceX has gained about 40% in less than two weeks, including Wednesday’s 10% jump. The stock is finally back above its $135 IPO price, although it remains below where it began trading two months ago.
Ironically, the biggest test for the stock produced the opposite result investors expected.
The Lockup Didn’t Break SpaceX
On Aug. 6, the first major post-IPO lockup expired, making another $100 billion worth of shares eligible for trading. Between now and October, newly available shares will more than double the stock’s tradable supply. Yet, instead of collapsing, SpaceX continued higher.
One likely explanation is positioning. SpaceX had attracted substantial short interest, and the absence of the expected wave of selling gave short sellers a reason to cover. That buying can become self-reinforcing when a heavily shorted stock moves higher.
Although a larger float creates more potential selling pressure, it doesn’t guarantee that sellers will win. Price ultimately depends on the balance between buyers and sellers.
Musk Needs About 20% More
Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index put Musk’s fortune around $884 billion on Aug. 12, while Forbes’ real-time estimate is roughly $890 billion. SpaceX remains the dominant piece, alongside Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and smaller holdings including Neuralink and The Boring Company.
Bloomberg cites roughly 4.76 billion SpaceX shares plus 352.5 million options with an exercise price around $8.40. Forbes has used similar ownership figures.
At $146.15, that works out to roughly:
| Holding | Approximate Value |
| 4.76 billion SpaceX shares | $701.5 billion |
| 352.5 million SpaceX options | $48.2 billion |
| 699.6 million Tesla shares | ~$225 billion |
| Exclusion of some restricted/performance-based TSLA and SPCX options | – ~$90 billion |
| Total SpaceX + Tesla | ~$880 billion to $890 billion |
The important number for investors is this: every $1 move in SpaceX changes the value of Musk’s counted SpaceX stake by roughly $5 billion. Yesterday’s $12.86 per share gain therefore added about $66 billion.
At current Tesla prices and assuming nothing else changes, SpaceX likely needs to reach roughly $168 to $175 for Musk to regain trillionaire status. That’s about a 15% to 20% gain from yesterday’s close.
Key Takeaway
Musk doesn’t need SpaceX to revisit its $225.64 peak to become a trillionaire again. He needs something closer to $170 a share. That makes the next 20% surprisingly important. Granted, SpaceX remains a young public company with enormous valuation and volatility risks. The lockup expirations will also continue increasing the available float. But the stock has already demonstrated that those risks don’t automatically translate into lower prices.
For investors, the bigger question isn’t whether Musk can become a trillionaire again. It’s whether SpaceX’s underlying businesses can grow fast enough to justify a stock price that gets him there.
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