Elon Musk is already favored to become the world’s first trillionaire before New Year’s, but a pay package buried in SpaceX’s S-1 filing last week could push him toward $2 trillion if he delivers a Mars colony.

Polymarket traders give Musk a 94% chance of crossing the trillion-dollar mark before 2027, with $533,000 in volume on the contract. His current net worth sits at $733 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The trillion-dollar threshold may resolve on listing day. At the targeted $1.75 trillion IPO valuation, Musk’s 44% stake in the combined SpaceX-xAI entity would be worth around $770 billion.

Combined with his roughly 11% Tesla stake and 304 million exercisable options from his 2018 pay package, he should cross the trillionaire line the moment the IPO bell rings.

Polymarket prices the SpaceX IPO closing market cap at $2 trillion-plus at 72%.

The Mars Colony Bonus

The S-1, filed Wednesday, May 20, revealed two performance-based awards that could hand Musk more than 1.3 billion shares if SpaceX hits a series of market cap and operational milestones.

Bloomberg calculated the combined value at roughly $760 billion at the top end.

The larger award is 1 billion Class B shares split into 15 tranches, with a top market cap target of $7.5 trillion. None of it vests until SpaceX establishes a permanent Mars colony with at least 1 million inhabitants. Worth $600 billion if fully achieved.

The smaller package, a restructured version of his old xAI deal, requires SpaceX to build “non-Earth-based data centers capable of delivering 100 terawatts of compute per year.”

Polymarket already has a contract, although thinly traded, on the orbital data center milestone, and traders give it a 17% chance of happening by Dec. 31, 2027. This would be worth nearly $160 billion to Musk if it vests.

The Improbable Accounting Shield

SpaceX hasn’t booked any compensation expense for the awards because the company itself called both milestones “improbable.”

The S-1 also revealed a $4.94 billion net loss for 2025, driven by a $6.35 billion operating loss from the AI side after SpaceX absorbed xAI in February. Forcing even a fraction of a $760 billion package onto the P&L ahead of the IPO would make the loss line look catastrophic.

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) remains the cleanest public proxy on the Musk trade until SpaceX prices.

Combined with his Tesla pay deal, Musk now has roughly $1.8 trillion of equity awards on the line if his companies hit every target.

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