An Intern Disobeyed His Parents And Joined SpaceX In 2011. Following Its Historic IPO, He And Thousands Of Other Employees Are Now Millionaires

This article by Brian Contreras was originally published on Inc.com.

With SpaceX finally making its long-awaited debut on the Nasdaq, fans of the Elon Musk-backed rocketry venture—most of whom have been unable to buy a stake in the company until now—are having a great day.

Probably having an even better one? The many current and former SpaceX employees who picked up equity during their time working for the engineering giant and, thanks to this Friday’s record-breaking initial public offering (IPO), can finally cash out on the public markets (at least eventually).

Indeed, with early signs looking good for the stock—initially priced by Musk at US$135 per share, Yahoo Finance and Google Finance data indicate it’s now trading at around $164, despite the skepticism of many analysts who’ve cautioned against overinflated expectations—preexisting SpaceX shareholders seem poised to secure an eye-popping return on investment (ROI).

The New York Times estimates that the company has 22,000 employees, plus hundreds more who have left. Many of them were paid in part with equity rather than 100 percent cash, leaving them with shares that they will soon be able to liquidate amid sky-high demand from retail investors eager to get SpaceX exposure.

The most highly rewarded of these employees will, of course, be Musk himself, who is set to become the world’s first trillionaire (at least on paper) following the public listing.

But, citing data from the investment platform Hill.com, the Times estimates that around 4,400 other SpaceX employees will at least become millionaires—many of whom never expected to be so lucratively compensated when they first took their jobs at the rockets, satellites, and AI company. An upper echelon of 400 company affiliates will make $100 million or more.

“The magnitude of this has been ridiculous,” 37-year-old Trevor Hise told the paper, explaining how he took an internship at SpaceX after graduating from college in 2011—despite the protests of his parents, who wanted him to lock down a more stable gig—and then stayed there for the next 12 years.

Over that tenure, the Times adds, Hise accumulated over 100,000 SpaceX shares—currently worth more than $16 million. The former intern, the article adds, “now considers himself semiretired.”

He’s not the only one. Gavin Petit, 42, a SpaceX engineer from 2012 through 2023, accumulated a treasure trove of equity during his time at the company, the Times reports, often electing to take bonuses in the form of extra shares—a gamble, in other words, on the company’s growth. He now holds about 50,000 shares.

“I got so lucky I got hooked into it,” Petit told the Times, comparing his post-IPO payday to winning the lottery.

It is possible, though sometimes complicated, for employees to sell their shares in still-private companies through what’s known as the secondary market. Selling public-company shares on an exchange such as the Nasdaq, however, is much more straightforward, although there’s often a lockup period in the immediate wake of a new listing.

Of course, not all the people making a mint off of their SpaceX bets are individual employees and ex-employees; plenty of venture capitalists and other investment firms have also backed the company across its lifetime, and will now be rewarded handsomely for doing so.

In fact, some of the beneficiaries will be the individual and institutional investors who helped Musk take Twitter (now called X) private a few years ago. An estimated $10 billion of that $44 billion purchase came from outside backers, and through a series of corporate maneuvers, SpaceX now owns X—creating a payday for X’s earlier supporters.