If you work at SpaceX, or ever have, congratulations. You’re about to get very rich.
On Friday, Elon Musk’s Space and AI company debuted on the public markets in the largest initial public offering in history, with the rocket company’s valuation surpassing $2 trillion.
While mom-and-pop investors are just getting in on the action, SpaceX employees already have a piece. The company puts “heavy emphasis on equity compensation to provide employees with a financial stake in our business and an ownership mindset,” it said in its S-1 securities filing.
For employees who have held on to their shares, it’s paid off. Andrew Benson, the founder of pre-IPO trading platform Hill Markets, estimated the SpaceX IPO will mint 4,400 new millionaires; 400 of those will be centimillionaires.
“You’re going to have the single largest wealth event potentially in the history of the world,” Matthew Fleissig, the CEO of investment advisory Pathstone, told Business Insider.
That’s good news, of course, but don’t expect a new fleet of superyachts or private jets with SpaceX employees at the helm.
Once lockup periods are out of the way and employees can sell their shares, nice homes, charter flights, and luxury vacations are more common and smarter ways to spend the money, wealth advisors told Business Insider.
“The biggest mistakes we see is people spending down their money,” Fleissig, who has guided clients through major liquidity events, said. “We have seen plenty of scenarios where a client tried to build a home with 13-foot-thick cement walls for a nuclear bomb, and it might have had a waterfall for the batcave, and it ended up costing $40 million to $50 million, and it got out of control.”
Mo money, mo problems
Wealth advisors told Business Insider that sudden liquidity can come with several pitfalls. There are wealth advisement fees, taxes, and, of course, the sirens’ call of shiny toys.
“You get this unbelievable sticker shock when you get new wealth that it’s actually really expensive to be wealthy,” Fleissig said. His firm has a program for pre-liquidity clients, including “a nice amount” of SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI employees and investors.
One point they hammer home: Everything involving money is about to cost more.
Wealth managers charge clients a fee, typically 0.5% and 1% of the money they manage. Some SpaceX employees are trying to get ahead of that, with an employee group negotiating favorable terms with one Chicago wealth management firm, two sources familiar with the plans told Business Insider.
Taxes, too, are about to become more complex and expensive — and not just the total paid to Uncle Sam. Someone used to uploading a tax form to TurboTax may now spend $25,000 on an accountant to navigate a return involving various types of investments.
Then there’s the impulse to blow the new cash.
“The minute people identify you as being somebody that is a SpaceX centimillionaire, everybody’s going to be coming at you,” Michael Cole, a former wealth advisor and the cofounder of R360, a membership group for centimillionaire and billionaire families, told Business Insider.
When it comes to big-ticket items, advisors say: buyers beware.
Yachts are infamous money pits, with annual maintenance costing about 10% of their new-build price, according to industry standards.
On the low end, private planes can cost $1 million a year to maintain. Francis advises clients not to spend more than 10% of their net worth on a private aircraft and to do their homework on the seller and operating crew.
“You need 1,500 hours of experience to be a barber,” he said. “The training you need to become an aircraft sales broker, an aircraft charter broker is zero.”
‘Slow down to speed up’
When it comes to liquidation events — SpaceX had several ahead of its IPO — Cole’s motto is “slow down to speed up.”
The first thing to do is diversify, he said, and the next is to think.
“It makes really good sense to start to liquidate a concentrated holding because your risk is all of your wealth is in one stock,” Cole said. “The markets can be fickle around different things, and right now SpaceX is the flavor of the month.”
Put that money into short-term treasuries, he said, and take six months to make a plan that takes into account risk tolerance, taxes, objectives, and time horizons.
Beyond investments, wealth can open a new way of seeing your life.
Fleissig suggests clients ask themselves how they want to spend their time, whether that be with their families, on vacation, or taking up hobbies.
Of course, life can very well involve a little luxury. There’s nothing wrong with upgrading your home or splurging on a sports car or a new watch.
“You may want to buy a plane, you may want to buy a yacht, those can all be really fun,” Cole said. “Take your time.”
