Online Reporter
NEW YORK. — Elon Musk managed to break two massive records in the world of business on Friday: launching the largest-ever initial public offering of his company SpaceX and becoming the world’s first trillionaire.
SpaceX started trading on Friday at US$150 per share, and was up to US$171 per share by midday, solidifying his title as the world’s first-ever trillionaire, including his majority stakes in his rocket company and Tesla.
Even experienced wealth managers have a hard time wrapping their heads around how they’d manage a fortune the size of Musk’s, especially since it has the power to move markets and make other massive influences if not kept in check.
“I would guess there are zero wealth advisors qualified to handle $1 trillion,” Jake Falcon, CEO of Falcon Wealth Advisors, told Fortune. “If Elon hired me to manage his wealth, I would build a new type of family office.”
Managing a trillionaire isn’t just like managing a billionaire at a larger scale, T.L. Turnipseed, head of estate and tax planning at Alta Trust Company, told Fortune.
“The planning has to address control, succession, creditor exposure, market volatility, public scrutiny, liquidity, philanthropy, and multigenerational governance all at once,” he explained.
“The real difference is that the central question shifts from ‘can we grow the money’ to ‘can we preserve control and purpose’ while the number becomes too large for ordinary planning.’ “The answer is a governance system, not just a portfolio.”Evan Mills, associate financial advisor at Scholar Advising, which specialises in complex wealth planning for ultra-high-net-worth families, said trillionaire wealth can really move markets.
“A billionaire can have concentration risk in a single company or a single sector. But at a trillion dollars, they not only have concentration risk, they have major market impact for any move that they make,” he said. “They sell a stock, they could control the price of that stock just by selling groups of it. Now they’re worrying about voting control and losing control of their overall company.” —Fortune
