The story of SpaceX's employees achieving wealth is more complex and costly than it appears.
Some individuals have traded their SpaceX stock for gift cards to chain restaurants.
Today, that stock is valued at $135 per share.
On June 12, 2026, SpaceX made its debut on the Nasdaq, achieving a valuation of $1.77 trillion, setting a new record for the largest IPO in history. However, the headline-grabbing figure wasn't the only focus; a related announcement stated that this IPO was expected to create 4,400 millionaires, with even cafeteria staff achieving financial independence.
This might instantly make you think of your own desk.
The thought flashes through your mind faster than you can acknowledge it: if only I had joined SpaceX back then...
Stop. Hold off on the envy. This story is far more intricate and, in some ways, harsher than you might assume.
Let's start with the conclusion: the "financial freedom" you envy is, in essence, a gamble.
Since its founding in 2002, SpaceX has implemented a compensation strategy: low cash, high equity. Employee salaries are typically 20%-30% below Silicon Valley peers, with the difference made up in stock options.
Here's the crucial point—this is not an exclusive perk for executives and engineers. Welders, cafeteria staff, engineers on recovery ships—from the C-suite to the shop floor, equity incentives cover nearly every position.
It sounds wonderful, doesn't it? A rocket company making shareholders out of cafeteria workers.
But you need to understand what these shareholders have endured. Before 2008, SpaceX suffered three consecutive launch failures, bringing the company to the brink of bankruptcy. Employees watched rockets explode into fireballs on the news while weighing the value of the "stock option" paper in their hands. When welder Juan Hernandez joined in 2015, one of the most common topics of private discussion among colleagues was whether the company would even survive long enough to go public. A blue-collar worker earning $28 per hour, with wages below industry standards, working late into the night as the norm, and a family waiting for mortgage payments—then the company tells you: take less cash, here's some paper that "might be valuable in the future." Do you sign or not?
Most signed. Not out of bravery, but because they had little choice—in the launch sites of southern Texas, there was only one major employer for miles around.
After reviewing the prospectus, Jason Schloetzer, an associate professor of accounting at Georgetown University, offered a sobering perspective.
He pointed out a fact completely overlooked by the celebratory narrative: many of SpaceX's frontline employees were not "gifted" stock; they bought it with deductions from their own wages—through an Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP), which allows payroll deductions to purchase company stock at a discount.
It wasn't the company placing a bet for them; they were wagering with their own money.
Schloetzer's next statement is even more worth remembering.
In plain terms: In the past, companies promised "you work until retirement, and we'll support you until old age." Now, companies say, "We'll pay you less in salary, give you some options. If the company goes public, you'll strike it rich. If it doesn't... well, that's just your bad luck."
The risk has shifted from the employer's balance sheet to the employee's livelihood.
If the bet wins, people like Juan Hernandez make the news. If it loses, no one writes a story about you. The success rate for a startup from founding to IPO is less than 1%—if the entire industry followed SpaceX's model, the result wouldn't be "all blue-collar workers achieving financial freedom," but 99% of blue-collar workers holding a pile of worthless options, without having saved for retirement.
Those who traded stock for gift cards are the rational ones.
Now, let's discuss that staggering detail.
Multiple SpaceX insiders have revealed that some early employees exchanged their company stock for gift cards to chain restaurants.
This is not a joke. It actually happened.
From today's perspective, it seems foolish to the point of being suffocating—an internal price of less than $2 per share is now $135, a 68-fold increase. If you held 10,000 shares, that's a jump from $20,000 to $1.35 million. And you traded it for a gift card good for a few meals.
But put yourself in the context of the 2010s—
A rocket company founded in 2002, whose first three launches all exploded. The founder repeatedly stated publicly that he was "averse to capital markets" and that the company "would not go public until interplanetary transport became routine." The stock you held could not be traded, spent, used to pay a mortgage, and you didn't even know its true value.
Trading an intangible, unseeable set of numbers for a card that gets you a free lunch—this isn't greed; it's the most instinctive human reaction to uncertainty: grab what you can actually grasp.
You might say today, "I would never have sold"—but that's because you already know the ending. In your own life, no moment comes with a spoiler alert; no one tells you the outcome in advance.
Gavin Petit, who joined in 2012, chose to forgo a cash bonus in exchange for stock. In his own words: "Commercial rocket launch technology was not yet mature at the time, and the risk of failure was extremely high." He also admitted it was a gamble. He won that bet, so he had the chance to tell The New York Times, "This is our generation's Coca-Cola IPO."
And those who lost their bets and left early? No journalist interviews them. No report records their names. The 4,400 millionaires are a story of survivors, and survivors never tell you how frequent the shipwrecks are.
You might be making the opposite mistake.
What mistake did those who traded for gift cards make? They let present fear negate future possibility.
But if, after reading this news today, the thought "I should have gone to work as a welder at SpaceX" pops into your mind—you are committing the opposite, equally fatal error: using someone else's outcome to reverse-engineer your own decision.
You know SpaceX went public, so you think "taking equity was the right move." But welder Juan Hernandez, who joined in 2015, didn't know that. He earned $28 an hour, received an initial grant worth $10,000, and continued to purchase more himself. By IPO day, his remaining equity was worth about $880,000—not quite hitting the million mark, but he said it "sets me up for life."
He didn't bet everything; he wagered within his means. This is entirely different from "going all-in waiting to get rich."
Another former employee held $21.4 million in stock, representing 93% of their household's investable net worth. A paper millionaire is, in essence, someone who has put all their eggs in one basket. This time the basket didn't drop, but can you guarantee yours won't?
"Cafeteria staff achieving financial freedom" shows you the most beautiful side of an extremely low-probability event. If you base life decisions on this—jumping to a startup, taking a pay cut for options, investing savings in pre-IPO stock—you're not emulating SpaceX employees; you're emulating the mirror image of those who traded for gift cards: using someone else's ending to gamble on your own future.
Elon Musk alone equals 4,400 millionaires multiplied by?
The figure of 4,400 millionaires is indeed staggering. But we need to look at another number simultaneously:
Elon Musk holds approximately 42% of SpaceX's shares.
At a $1.77 trillion valuation, his stake is worth about $740 billion. If the stock price rises just 2.2% more to $138, he will become the first trillionaire in human history—one person's assets roughly equaling the total net worth of all households in Greece, a nation of 10 million people.
Combined, the 4,400 millionaires' paper gains are almost negligible compared to the paper gains of one man.
Nabil Ahmed, Senior Director of Economic Justice at Oxfam America, noted:
The 4,400 millionaires are the narrative; the one trillionaire is the structure. The narrative makes you feel the world is improving; the structure tells you everything remains the same. Those 400 or so employees worth over $100 million are mostly early engineers and executives. The true blue-collar workers, like Juan Hernandez, received $880,000—enough to change a life, but separated from the "$100 million club" by two orders of magnitude.
SpaceX's wealth creation story is less about "democratization of wealth" and more about "the charitable packaging of wealth concentration"—giving the底层 enough crumbs to maintain narrative legitimacy, while the essence of the structure remains unchanged. That said, $880,000 is a genuine, life-altering fortune for a welder earning $28 an hour. Structural inequality aside, an individual's life being changed is real. However—the前提 for this change was that he first endured a decade of uncertain煎熬, and most people in similar situations do not have that运气.
Paper wealth is not cash in hand; this group faces another six months of煎熬.
Finally, let's address the most practical issue: at this moment, not one of those 4,400 millionaires is an actual millionaire in cash.
The lock-up period is 90 to 180 days. SpaceX's S-1 filing shows a release schedule: 7% on day 70, followed by an additional 7% every 15 days, then 20% and 28% released after the Q2 and Q3 earnings reports respectively, with full release on day 180.
The earliest small-scale sales can begin in late July, with full release not until December 2026.
Meanwhile, Morningstar's fair value estimate for SpaceX is $63 per share—53% below the IPO price. New York University's "Dean of Valuation," Aswath Damodaran, estimates a value of $1.2 to $1.3 trillion, 28% below the IPO target. His exact words were: "I would not participate in this IPO."
If the stock price corrects during the lock-up period, these "paper millionaires" could see a significant portion of their gains evaporate before they can access them. Over 1,000 employees have already联合成立 a wealth management group涉及资产规模 of $1 to $5 billion. This collective action itself indicates: they know this is not an "overnight windfall," but a six-month high-wire act requiring精密操作.
So, what should you take away from this news?
Not the fantasy that "if cafeteria staff can achieve financial freedom, so can I," nor the cynicism that "it's all a scam."
Instead, three frameworks for judgment:
First, when you see "全员持股," ask: Is it a gift or a purchase? A gift is a benefit; a purchase is a wager. The characteristic of a wager is—if you win, it's yours; if you lose, it's also yours.
Second, when you see a "wealth creation myth," ask: Where are the survivors? You see the 4,400 people; you don't see those who traded for gift cards or the countless employees at startups whose options became worthless. Using outcomes to reverse-engineer decisions is a common cognitive error.
Third, when you see an "inclusive narrative," ask: Has the structure changed? 4,400 people get crumbs; one person takes most of the cake. This is not a revolution in分配 logic; it is an extreme放大 under an exceptionally successful case—not replicable, not to be模仿.
The cafeteria worker did indeed receive equity, and that's positive. But the next time you see such news and feel a surge of excitement, first ask yourself one question:
Did she receive a gift, or did she take a bet?
Then, ask yourself an even more pointed question:
Is the decision you are currently making based on facts, or on someone else's outcome?
In truth, each of us faces some version of the "SpaceX choice."
Take a pay cut to join that seemingly promising startup team, or stay at the established company with a reliable monthly paycheck? Accept options in lieu of cash, or insist on tangible numbers? Bet on an industry trend, or hold onto the certainty at hand?
There is no standard answer. But there is a standard error: seeing someone else's outcome and assuming you can walk the same path.
The 4,400 people at SpaceX show us that persistence can sometimes win. Those who traded for gift cards show us that walking away can sometimes be rational. What truly matters is not choosing persistence or放弃—it's knowing whether you are placing a bet or signing a contract.
Gambling isn't可怕. What's可怕 is thinking you're collecting a福利.
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