It is 07:25 am, 13 October 2024, at Starbase, near Boca Chica on the Texas side of the US-Mexico border. On the launch pad stands the biggest rocket ever made. Its engines fire and it climbs into the skies over the Gulf of Mexico to cheers and screams in the SpaceX control room.
But the launch is not the main event. Seven minutes later, the massive rocket booster that blasted the craft towards space starts falling back to Earth – until its engines reignite as planned. It slows its descent and guides itself with pinpoint precision so it can be captured by a clasp called Mechazilla, or “the chopsticks”, by engineers who have achieved something that has never been done before.
“SpaceX's IPO on 12 June could make Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire.”
Amid the whoops and high-fives in SpaceX’s control room, Elon Musk tells his millions of social media followers that this is a “big step towards making life multiplanetary” – a reusable rocket that will slash the costs of launching things into orbit, to the Moon and one day to Mars.
On 12 June, trading will begin in a chunk of shares in a company that, up to now, only Musk and a select group of rich private institutions have been able or invited to own. The chance for normal Earthlings to buy shares in SpaceX is one of the most important moments in the history of stock markets and is close at hand – and one that will almost certainly make Elon Musk the world’s first ever trillionaire.
UK retail investors are likely to be allocated around £1.5bn worth of shares and one of the UK’s leading investing platforms hopes this could encourage a new generation of investors. Simon Belsham, Chief Client Officer at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “While we recognise this IPO might not be right for everyone, it’s an exciting moment for many of our clients. We’re expecting this might be a first foray into investing for many.”
Even if you don’t apply directly to buy shares, if you have retirement savings invested in shares – as almost everyone with a pension plan does – then it is very likely you will soon be a part-owner of a company that sits at the crossroads between technology and geopolitics and, as Musk would have it, the very future of the human race.