Who Wants to Be a Trillionaire? The SpaceX IPO is a credit to Elon Musk and American capitalism

WSJ editorial. Excerpts:

"The company raised $75 billion in its public debut, nearly three times more than the previous largest IPO (Saudi Aramco in 2019). It will need that money and multiples more to achieve Mr. Musk’s ambition of colonizing Mars and mining asteroids."

"Mr. Musk’s wealth largely consists of shares in SpaceX and Tesla."

"Mr. Musk’s wealth is a tribute to U.S. entrepreneurship and innovation, which are byproducts of its free-market system."

"Mr. Musk, an immigrant from South Africa, launched the rocket company in 2002 with money he made from his PayPal startup."

"NASA awarded SpaceX a contract to supply the International Space Station. SpaceX later developed reusable rockets that greatly reduce launch costs"

"Its success, which came through trial and failure, has ended U.S. reliance on Russia to transport astronauts to the space station and launch American satellites."

"In 2015 SpaceX launched Starlink, an internet satellite company that has helped Ukraine resist Russia’s invasion and dissidents living under authoritarian regimes like Iran to communicate."

"SpaceX has created thousands of jobs in working-class communities"

"Its workers . . . receive stock options, which has allowed them to share in the company’s success." 

"the IPO has made millionaires of 4,400 SpaceX current and former employees"