'Take the fiction out of science fiction': Here's what Elon Musk said as SpaceX makes blockbuster market debut

Elon Musk spoke to his colleagues and investors and SpaceX’s IPO started on Nasdaq on Friday, making him the world’s first billionaire and putting the tech mogul miles ahead of his peers in wealth.

In his speech today, the SpaceX CEO talked about how the “small company” he founded is now “going public with the biggest IPO of all time.”

The world’s richest man also said he had no hope of SpaceX becoming successful in the first place, saying, “And let me tell you, if people told me it was going to happen, I was like, ‘Man, you’ve got to be smoking really good crack because I think this company is going to fail. I mean, I was giving SpaceX less than a 10% chance of ever succeeding.’

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SpaceX’s Nasdaq IPO was notable for being the largest in history, debuting at $150 per share, an 11% premium to its $135 IPO price, and achieving a market valuation of approximately $1.96 trillion.

Elon Musk has commented that he believes SpaceX has less than a 10% chance of success, indicating his skepticism about the company’s survival and acknowledging the enormous challenges it faced.

Musk aims to eventually take anyone interested to the moon, Mars or beyond the solar system, with SpaceX aiming to make space travel accessible not only to astronauts, but also to ordinary people.

Driven by his passion for the future of humanity, Musk believes that without new companies in space, the dream of becoming a “space civilization” and realizing the exciting future depicted in science fiction would remain unfulfilled.

Yes, potential investors should be cautious, as analysts noted that SpaceX’s valuation and future success depend on Musk delivering on ambitious promises and the volatile nature of the newly listed stock.

But what drove Musk was his passion for humanity to become a “space-carrying civilization.”

“To be clear, I actually told people this, I said, ‘Look, we’re probably going to fail, but you know, we should try because if we don’t, if there’s not a new society that goes into space, we’re never going to be a truly space civilization,'” he said.

Read also | SpaceX debuts on Nasdaq at $150, an 11% premium to its IPO price

“Nobody followed the technology to make Star Trek”

While Musk acknowledged that other aerospace companies were building good rockets, his problem with them was that none of them were developing the technology to turn humanity into an interplanetary civilization and make science fiction stories possible.

“You know, while other aerospace companies, building good rockets and everything, they just haven’t pursued the technology that’s necessary to make life multiplanetary, to make Star Trek, to make the exciting science fiction future that we read about real, and that’s what SpaceX is, is to take the fiction out of science fiction and create an exciting, inspiring future for Tesla, the boss of Tesla.

“I want to be able to take anyone who wants to go to Mars, the moon”

Musk also said that his company wants to be able to get into a position to take the common man to the moon, Mars or even beyond the solar system. He wants to make the space accessible to ordinary people.

“We want to be able to take anyone who wants to go to the moon, anyone who wants to go to Mars or anywhere in the solar system and maybe even beyond the solar system at some point – we want to take you there. Not just a few astronauts, I mean you – literally you. However you look at it, SpaceX wants to be able to take you to the moon, we’re going to take you with a team that’s incredible at this place. Here at SpaceX, we’re going to do it for you,” he said with conviction.

Read also | SpaceX gains 11% on Nasdaq debut and market cap approaches $2 trillion

What about problems on Earth?

While Musk acknowledged that there are problems on Earth that need to be solved, he believes we should look beyond, to the future, and get excited about what lies ahead: “I always think about that. There are always problems on Earth. There are always problems on Earth. There are always things that we wish we could do better, that we want to solve here on Earth, and we should solve them. But there have to be things that wake you up in the morning so you can get up. wait, what happens next, and that’s the future SpaceX wants to bring you.”