Mexican Immigrant Earned $28 an Hour at SpaceX — The IPO Could Make Him a Millionaire

SpaceX is set to price 555.6 million Class A shares at $135 (£101) each on 11 June, with trading on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX expected to begin the following day. At a valuation near $1.77 trillion (£1.33 trillion), the deal would raise $75 billion (£56.3 billion) and shatter Saudi Aramco's 2019 record of $25.6 billion (£19.2 billion) as the largest IPO in history, according to the company's updated SEC prospectus.

While the attention has focused on SpaceX's staggering valuation and what it means for Elon Musk's net worth, the listing is also about to transform the finances of thousands of ordinary workers. Welders, mariners, baristas, and technicians who received stock as part of their pay are all in line for life-changing returns.

Musk's Path to Becoming the First Trillionaire

Musk holds approximately 42 per cent of SpaceX's equity and controls 79 per cent of its voting power. His stake is valued at roughly $866.5 billion (£650 billion) on paper, CNBC noted. Paired with his Tesla holdings of more than $350 billion (£263 billion), the IPO could push his net worth past $1 trillion (£750 billion) and make him the world's first trillionaire.

The S-1 filing also disclosed that SpaceX holds 18,712 Bitcoin on its balance sheet, worth approximately $1.29 billion (£968 million) as of 31 March. Once shares begin trading, that would rank SpaceX among the top 10 public companies by Bitcoin holdings.

The Workers Cashing in Alongside the Billionaires

Juan Hernandez, 42, immigrated to the United States from Mexico and learned to weld because the pay was good.

He joined SpaceX in 2015 as a contractor earning $28 (£21) an hour after a friend mentioned an opening at a company he had never heard of. He moved into a full-time role, received an equity grant valued at $10,000 (£7,500) that vested over five years, and bought additional shares through payroll deductions, The Wall Street Journal profiled this week.

He sold a portion of his stake in 2020 to buy property in Texas and has since left to work as a welder at Blue Origin. His remaining shares are worth roughly $880,000 (£660,000) at the IPO price.

'It's put me in a comfortable position for life,' Hernandez said.

Maryellyn Musselman is a different kind of SpaceX success story. The 27-year-old spent two years as an engineering officer on a recovery vessel retrieving rocket parts off the Florida coast. She received stock as part of her compensation and set aside 10% of every pay cheque to buy more — rare in the maritime industry, where equity is almost unheard of as a benefit.

'Mariners are not usually stock owners in their companies; they're not always under benefits,' Musselman said. She declined to say how much her holdings are worth but plans to use the windfall to start a repair business in Chesapeake, Virginia.

Board Stakes, Early Bets, and the Retail Window

The largest individual winner behind Musk is board member Antonio Gracias, whose 503.4 million shares represent 7% of Class A stock.

At $135 a share, that position is worth approximately $68 billion (£51 billion). CFO Bret Johnsen holds 9.6 million shares worth roughly $1.3 billion (£975 million), while director Luke Nosek's $20 million (£15 million) bet in 2008 has swelled to an estimated $4.5 billion (£3.4 billion), CNBC separately calculated.

Former engineer J. André Lavoie, 63, who left SpaceX in 2015 and bought a small hotel in the Italian Alps, holds shares now valued above $28 million (£21 million). 'Every year the shares have been going up so radically it keeps messing up my life plans,' Lavoie told The Wall Street Journal.

Retail investors have a narrow window to participate. Fidelity, Robinhood, SoFi, Charles Schwab, and E*Trade are all named in the S-1 as brokerages offering IPO allocations, with the subscription window closing on 11 June. SpaceX generated $18.7 billion (£14 billion) in revenue during 2025, driven largely by its Starlink satellite internet division.

For Hernandez, a former $28-an-hour contractor who had never heard of SpaceX when he walked through the door 11 years ago, the numbers remain hard to process. A $10,000 equity grant and a steady habit of buying stock through payroll deductions have done the rest.