More than 4,000 employees are expected to join the ranks of millionaires with SpaceX's initial public offering (IPO) set for the 12th. The real estate market around SpaceX is also expected to heat up.
On the 10th (local time), the New York Times (NYT), citing the San Francisco–based investment platform Hill.com, reported that more than 4,400 current and former employees will likely become millionaires after the SpaceX listing. About 400 of them are expected to hold more than $100 million (about 1500 billion won) in assets.
SpaceX has about 22,000 employees. SpaceX is expected to list this week at $135 (about 210,000 won) per share. Based on that, the corporate value comes to $1.77 trillion (about 2,700 trillion won). That is about five times the market capitalization of General Electric (GE), a leading U.S. electronics maker. Even though the company posted a multitrillion-won loss in the first quarter, it received investment-grade ratings from major global credit rating agencies including Moody's, Fitch and S&P.
In general, during an IPO, wealth tends to concentrate with founders or early investors, but it is considered highly unusual for thousands of employees to simultaneously join the ranks of major asset holders.
Andrew Benson, founder of Hill.com, said, "It's rare to have as many as 400 people with more than $100 million in assets," noting, "It means that an enormous amount of wealth was created at SpaceX."
The biggest beneficiary of the IPO is founder Elon Musk, the chief executive officer (CEO). Musk holds about 42% equity in SpaceX, and the market sees a strong chance that, with this listing, Musk could become the world's first "$1 trillion asset holder."
Employees who joined SpaceX early and contributed to the company's growth are also expected to secure significant wealth. Trevor Hise joined SpaceX, then a startup, in 2011 ahead of his college graduation and received more than 100,000 shares. The NYT reported that the value of his SpaceX shares is expected to reach at least $13.5 million.
Former employee Gavin Pretty joined in 2012 as a launch engineer and, in addition to an $80,000 annual salary, received thousands of shares instead of a cash bonus. He said that at the time, SpaceX's rockets were not yet fully proven and there had been launch failures, so it was seen as a fairly risky choice.
Not all employees will benefit from the listing. Because Musk has expressed negative views on publicly listed corporations and has criticized the requirement to disclose management information to shareholders every quarter, some employees reportedly believed the company would not go public and exchanged their holdings for restaurant gift cards such as Chili's.
Expectations over the emergence of new millionaires are also buoying the real estate market in Brownsville, Texas, near SpaceX's "Starbase" launch site. Hannah Jones, a senior economist at real estate information firm Realtor.com, said, "SpaceX has compensated employees more with equity than cash, so a large portion of assets had not been liquidated," adding, "After the listing, there is a high possibility that a large influx of funds will flow into the real estate market."
Local real estate agent Bob Torres said that after Musk used social media (SNS) in 2021 to encourage people to move to the Brownsville area as part of a talent drive, "calls suddenly started coming in from all over the United States," adding, "There were even cases where SpaceX employees bid against each other and snapped up listings."