On June 12, SpaceX’s stock market debut made Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire. By August, a slide in the shares had pushed him back below the $700 billion mark.

On Wednesday, a blowout third quarter at his rocket company put him back above $1 trillion.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:SPCX) jumped about 10% to $163 by 10:00 a.m. ET. The stock now sits above its first-day close of $160.95, and about 56% above its Aug. 6 low of $104.83.

Musk owns about 38% of SpaceX, a company now worth $2.21 trillion. That means Wednesday’s rally added roughly $79 billion to the value of his stake, according to Benzinga calculations.

Tesla added the rest. Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) shares rose about 3.9% to $388 ahead of the carmaker’s results after the close, lifting Musk’s stake of nearly 11% by around $6 billion.

Musk ended the day before with a net worth of $921 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Wednesday’s gains of about $85 billion take him to roughly $1.01 trillion.

AI Is Now Paying for the Rockets

SpaceX was built to launch rockets. Its third quarter showed that artificial intelligence has become the bigger business.

Super Intelligence, the segment that houses the Grok models and the AI computing business, grew revenue to $7.6 billion from $813 million a year earlier.

It is now the company’s largest unit.

Total revenue rose 161% to $14.6 billion, ahead of the $12.72 billion analysts expected. SpaceX swung to a net profit of $4.4 billion, or 35 cents per share, from a $1.1 billion loss.

Starlink still matters. Connectivity revenue climbed 69% to $5.2 billion, and consumer subscribers reached 13.6 million.

Then came the strong guidance.

SpaceX expects first-quarter 2027 revenue of $33 billion to $37 billion, more than twice its third-quarter sales and well above the $22.2 billion consensus.

Musk sounded unbothered about whether customers will keep paying for computing power.

“I don’t think we’re going to have a demand issue here,” he said on the earnings call.

The bill is large, though. SpaceX spent $48.1 billion on capital projects in the first nine months of the year, nearly four times the $13.1 billion of cash its operations generated.

One Stock Now Decides the Trillion

The morning also showed how narrow Musk’s fortune has become.

SpaceX now accounts for more than four-fifths of his net worth, which is why one quarterly report could move it by $85 billion.

That concentration could deepen.

On the call, Musk said both boards have formed committees to study combining SpaceX and Tesla.

A merger “would be a good idea,” he said, but treating it as certain would be “overstating it.”

The committees have not agreed on terms, and Tesla would need approval from holders of 50% of its shares. If a deal happens, Musk’s two largest holdings would become one stock.

For now, the next test arrives Wednesday evening, when Tesla reports. Its numbers will help decide whether Musk is still a trillionaire when Thursday’s session opens.

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