The SpaceX IPO, Questions About Its Valuation, and the Sheer Absurdity of Elon Musk Being Personally Wealthier Than Every Country in the World Except the 20 Wealthiest Countries

     I read recently that if SpaceX’s IPO goes the way it is predicted, it will make Elon Musk a trillionaire and that his personal worth will be more than all the countries of the world except the twenty wealthiest countries. If that is not a clear signal that our current form of capitalism needs some more checks and balances, I don’t know what else could be.

     There are about 3,030 billionaires in the world and 19 centi-billionaires, those with over $100 billion in net worth, according to Forbes. Musk’s net worth is already double that of the next wealthiest human, Larry Page. The SpaceX IPO is likely to bring Musk’s net worth to three times that of Page. The answer to the question, “Where did all the money go?” should be directed at Mr. Musk. I used to say the mere existence of centi-billionaires is beyond grotesque, but now we are going to have a guy with over ten times that. Where does it end? I know some very smart and hard-working people who are dirt poor. Is Elon’s work really worth the same as the work of hundreds of millions of such people by himself? Think about how absurd it is.  Surely, luck is a factor, and skill is a factor, but it does baffle the mind and yank on our sense of fairness.

     Energy writer Robert Bryce has some ideas about Musk and the SpaceX IPO. In a May 30 post, he notes that Musk has long been fascinated by what is known as the Kardashev Scale, developed by the Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev (1932-2019), which classifies hypothetical civilizations by the amount of power they can harness: planetary, stellar, and galactic, and is often used in searching for extraterrestrial intelligence.

“There are three levels on Kardashev’s scale: Type I, II, and III. The first is a civilization that can use all the energy available on its home planet. For planet Earth, that figure is roughly the power of all the sunlight hitting our world, which is about 1016 watts. Type II societies can harness all of the energy output of their parent star, estimated at 1026 watts in the case of the Sun. And Type III civilizations can harness the energy resources of an entire galaxy, estimated at 1036 watts.”

     Musk’s obsession with going to space is likely related to his fascination with the Kardashev Scale. He quotes Musk, from 2024:

“Once you understand Kardashev Scale, it becomes utterly obvious that essentially all energy generation will be solar.”

     Musk also quipped that the only way to climb the Kardashev Scale is to go to space. Bryce even quotes the Form S-1 filing ahead of SpaceX’s IPO, where, presumably, Musk directly invokes the Kardashev Scale:

“We believe the next paradigm shift for humanity is the creation of a resilient, perpetually expanding spacefaring civilization that drives continuous innovation across new frontiers, ultimately propelling us to Kardashev Type II status — a civilization that harnesses the full energy output of our Sun.”

     Bryce notes the expected $1.7-2 trillion valuation of the IPO and describes it as loony:

“But by traditional metrics, SpaceX’s valuation is nothing short of loony. SpaceX’s 2025 revenue was $18.7 billion. At a valuation of $1.75 trillion, the company’s stock will be trading at 93 times current revenue. Again, that’s a multiple of the company’s revenue, not its profit. And that’s another issue: In 2025, SpaceX recorded an operating loss of $2.6 billion.”

     In a June 9 post, Bryce cites CNBC’s Jim Cramer as saying  the SpaceX IPO could “end up with a $5 trillion valuation on the day it comes public.” Below, he gives a graph of price-to-sales ratios of companies and adds SpaceX if the IPO values it at $1.75 trillion. He determines that SpaceX’s price-to-sales ratio would be 93. Thus, it would be valued at 93 times its current revenue. He also notes he doesn’t own any SpaceX stock and does not plan to buy any.

    Bryce’s conclusion in that post emphasizes the outsized claims and wonders how much of it is simply hype:

“Add in the fact that Musk will retain 85% of the company’s voting shares and that less than 5% of the company’s stock will actually be sold to the public, and the deal becomes even more incredible.”

“Perhaps SpaceX is worth trillions of dollars. But we live in the Age of Hype. Has the hype around SpaceX lost all contact with reality? We are about to find out.”

 

    

 

References:

 

SpaceX At $5 Trillion? The Final Frontier Of FOMO, Robert Bryce. Substack. June 9, 2026. SpaceX At $5 Trillion? The Final Frontier Of FOMO

SpaceX’s $2 Trillion Gas-Fired IPO Elon Musk’s rockets, AI ambitions, and dreams of "interplanetary industrialization" all depend on an old-fashioned fuel: the queen of the hydrocarbons. Robert Bryce. Substack. May 30, 2026. SpaceX’s $2 Trillion Gas-Fired IPO - Robert Bryce

Most Richest People in the World 2026. TOP 50 Billionaires List (June). Oleg Parashchak and Nataly Kramer. Beinsure, June 5, 2026. Richest People in the World 2026 ⭐ Top 50 Billionaires List (June)