L'ancien soudeur de SpaceX devient riche du jour au lendemain ! Après l'IPO, sa participation dépasse un million de dollars, il a déjà changé pour Blue Origin

SpaceX on going public on June 12th, and the Mexican-American welder Hernandez, through an employee stock ownership plan, turned an initial $10,000 stock into a million-dollar fortune, and has now moved to a competitor company.

After SpaceX went public on June 12th on NASDAQ, the most discussed case was not the billionaire list of executives, but a Mexican-American welder named Juan Hernandez who joined in 2015 earning $28 an hour. According to CBS News, after becoming a full-time employee, he received $10,000 in stock grants, plus additional shares bought through payroll deductions over 10 years, totaling about 6,500 shares worth approximately $1,046,175 after the IPO.

Another overlooked detail in the story is that Hernandez had already left SpaceX before the IPO to join Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, continuing as a welder. In other words, this “American Dream” case is also a story of Elon Musk’s competitor poaching a seasoned welder.

From $28 hourly wage to $1M stock: Hernandez’s 10 years at SpaceX

According to Yahoo Finance, Hernandez, at age 42 in 2015, was introduced by a friend to apply for a contract welder position at SpaceX. At that time, he was not familiar with the company. “To me, it was just another contract job,” Hernandez recalled, “I thought, I don’t know what SpaceX is, but I’ll go check it out.”

After becoming a full-time employee, he received a $10,000 stock grant, and continued to buy shares at a discount through ESPP (Employee Stock Purchase Plan) payroll deductions. Over 10 years, he rose from welder to supervisor. In 2020, he sold some shares to buy property in Texas, while the remaining holdings appreciated along with SpaceX’s valuation, which soared from hundreds of billions to a $1.75 trillion IPO valuation.

Hernandez has a straightforward view on employee stock ownership: “They perform better because this is their own company.” He also extends this logic to the next generation; his 16-year-old daughter already owns stocks like Meta, and he describes her as “kind of a young entrepreneur herself.”

Leaving SpaceX: jumping to Bezos’s Blue Origin

The headline from Yahoo Finance clearly states the contrast: “He turned $10K SpaceX grants into about $880K, then left to work welding for Musk’s competitor.” Hernandez officially transferred to Blue Origin before the IPO, with the same role as a welder.

All reports do not specify his reasons for leaving; what is certain is that it was not driven by financial motives, as SpaceX was still a private company at the time, with shares not yet liquid. His exit value was entirely based on SpaceX’s own IPO. For Blue Origin, poaching a senior SpaceX welder is a direct transfer of human capital, especially since this employee was familiar with the structural welding details of rockets in both industries.

SpaceX IPO not only created executives: 4,400 employees become millionaires

According to Fortune, Hernandez’s story is just a microcosm of a larger wealth distribution. The $135 IPO price for SpaceX, with a valuation of $1.75 trillion, is estimated to make about 4,400 current and former employees’ stock holdings worth over $1 million, with around 400 holding over $100 million. On the executive side, CFO Bret Johnsen and COO Gwynne Shotwell each hold stock estimated to be over $1 billion, Director Antonio Gracias about $650 million, and Director Luke Nosek about $50 million.

Fortune quotes Georgetown University accounting professor Jason Schloetzer warning: “Paper gains of millions of dollars in stock do not equal millions of dollars in the bank.” Employee exit values are still affected by lock-up periods, price volatility, and taxes. Hernandez’s sale of shares to buy Texas real estate was also a phased, long-term strategy rather than a one-time cash-out after the IPO.

The Hernandez case also illustrates two points. First, buying at a discount through ESPP can amplify the grant effect over the long term, a financial tool often underestimated among employees. Second, employee “loyalty” and “best financial decision-making” are not always aligned; Hernandez chose to move to Blue Origin while SpaceX’s stock value was still accumulating, which aligns with the realities of the U.S. labor market. Chain News previously reported that SpaceX opened at $150, below the $175 guidance, with valuation skeptics questioning the $1.77 trillion figure, and SpaceX’s market cap soaring to $2.2 trillion, making Musk the world’s first trillionaire—these articles together highlight the actual distribution impact of the IPO on employees.

• This article is reprinted with permission from: 《Chain News》
• Original title: 《SpaceX 墨裔焊工 IPO 後股票破 $1M、已轉戰 Blue Origin》
• Original author: Elponcrab