As Trevor Hise was getting ready to graduate from college in 2011, his parents wanted him to take what they saw as a stable job at General Electric. But Mr. Hise had landed an internship at a start-up he loved. Against his parents’ advice, he stayed for a full-time job at that young company for the next 12 years.
The start-up was Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Today, Mr. Hise has more than 100,000 SpaceX shares that he earned from his time working there. With the rocket maker expected to go public this week at $135 a share, Mr. Hise’s SpaceX stock is likely worth at least $13.5 million — a sum that has left him in disbelief.
“The magnitude of this has been ridiculous,” said the 37-year-old, who worked as a SpaceX launch engineer and now considers himself semiretired.
SpaceX’s journey to the stock market has been defined by a series of superlatives. It is the biggest-ever initial public offering of the most dominant space company by the world’s richest man. And it is set to unleash generational wealth if its shares soar in its trading debut at the whopping valuation of $1.77 trillion, five times the market capitalization of General Electric.
SpaceX’s I.P.O. is expected to make a lot of rich people even richer. First in the queue is Mr. Musk, 54, who is likely to become the world’s first trillionaire. His friends, along with Silicon Valley venture capitalists, private investment firms and others who put money into the company, are also set to reap billions. » | Kirsten Grind Reporting from San Francisco | Wednesday, June 10, 2026