By When Juan Hernandez accepted a welding job at SpaceX in 2015, he did not know much about the company or the ambitious plans of its founder, Elon Musk.
A friend had suggested that Hernandez apply. The work sounded promising enough. Hernandez decided to take the opportunity.
“I don’t know what SpaceX is, but let’s go,” he recalled in an interview with CBS News.
Eleven years later, that decision has turned into a life-changing windfall.
SpaceX began trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol SPCX on Friday after raising $75 billion in the largest initial public offering in history. The company priced its shares at $135, but the stock quickly climbed above $160 during its first day of trading.
bro immigrated from Mexico and took a $28/hr contract welding job in 2015.
didn't even know what SpaceX was.
they gave him $10,000 in stock and let him buy more through payroll deductions.
that stake is now worth $880,000.
and he's one of 4,400 employees who became… pic.twitter.com/e775eElet1
— shirish (@shiri_shh) June 12, 2026
Hernandez owns roughly 6,500 shares. At the offering price, his holdings were worth about $877,500. By Friday afternoon, as investors rushed to buy into Musk’s rocket and satellite company, the value of his stake had crossed the $1 million mark.
The story is a reminder that the wealth created by successful companies does not flow exclusively to founders, executives and Wall Street investors. It can also reach the welders, technicians and tradesmen who helped build those companies from the ground up.
Hernandez spent a decade at SpaceX, working on the structures and infrastructure needed to prepare rockets for launch. He eventually became a supervisor before leaving the company for a job at Blue Origin.
When SpaceX hired him, the company offered him approximately $10,000 in stock. Hernandez had previously worked hourly jobs and was not accustomed to receiving an ownership stake in his employer. At the time, he did not fully appreciate what those shares could become.
He now says employee ownership gives workers an additional reason to care about a company’s success. Workers perform better, he told CBS News, because it becomes “their company as well.”
Hernandez plans to continue working and to pass the lessons of his experience to his three children. His 16-year-old daughter has already begun investing.
His good fortune provides a striking contrast with the response from several prominent Democrats to Musk’s emergence as the world’s first trillionaire.
In a National Review’s Charles C. W. Cooke pointed to California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s complaint that “the rich get richer and everyone else gets shafted.” Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., described Musk’s new status as “disgusting.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., called it a “wake up call.” Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner wrote that Musk should be the last person to reach the milestone.
Cooke described that reaction as evidence of an “impotent envy cult” that sees extraordinary achievement primarily as an opportunity for confiscation.
The SpaceX IPO offers a useful answer to that argument. Musk’s growing fortune is not a pile of cash sitting in a vault. It reflects the value investors have assigned to a company that developed reusable rockets, built a massive satellite network and transformed the economics of spaceflight.
That value has also created opportunities for workers such as Hernandez, an immigrant who showed up, mastered his trade and received a share of the company he helped build.
There are legitimate questions for investors to consider. SpaceX reported a $4.94 billion loss in 2025 on revenue of $18.7 billion, according to Reuters. Its valuation is enormous, and its future ambitions remain risky.
But Hernandez’s story captures something important about the American economic system. A welder who once viewed SpaceX as another contract job is now a millionaire because he took a chance on a company attempting something difficult.
Asked what he would tell Musk, Hernandez said he would thank him for expanding the realm of possibility for ordinary workers, including “the cook or electrician.”
That is not a scandal. It is the American dream.
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