A 1% mistake costs $10 billion: Inside the impossible math of managing Elon Musk’s trillionaire SpaceX wealth
Elon Musk managed to break two massive records in the world of business on Friday: launching the largest-ever initial public offering of his company SpaceX and becoming the world's first trillionaire. Both of these feats were challenging for even Musk to wrap his head around, co
Elon Musk managed to break two massive records in the world of business on Friday: launching the largest-ever initial public offering of his company SpaceX and becoming the world's first trillionaire.
Both of these feats were challenging for even Musk to wrap his head around, considering he had said he originally expected the company to fail.
"It's certainly hard to believe that a little company that started in a warehouse in El Segundo is now going for the largest IPO ever," he said at an appearance at Nasdaq when SPCX started trading on Friday. "And let me tell you, if people had told me this was going to happen, I [would've said]: 'Man you must be smoking some really good crack.'"
SpaceX started trading on Friday at $150 per share, and was up to $171 per share by midday, solidifying his title as the world's first-ever trillionaire, including his majority stakes in his rocket company and Tesla .
And while there's a large leap between millionaire and billionaire status, it's even harder to wrap one's head around what it actually means to be a trillionaire. Even experienced wealth managers have a hard time wrapping their heads around how they'd manage a fortune the size of Musk's, especially since it has the power to move markets and make other massive influences if not kept in check.
"I would guess there are zero wealth advisors qualified to handle $1 trillion," Jake Falcon, CEO of Falcon Wealth Advisors , told Fortune . "If Elon hired me to manage his wealth, I would build a new type of family office."
Falcon said that would mean building an office that "truly lined up" with Musk's philosophy and growing a team that caters to all of his wealth-management needs, while also having the confidence to tell him when he's making a wrong choice.
Managing a trillionaire isn't just like managing a billionaire at a larger scale, T.L. Turnipseed, head of estate and tax planning at Alta Trust Company, told Fortune .
