Former SpaceX welder achieves financial freedom overnight! After the IPO, his shareholdings exceed one million dollars, and he has already switched to Blue Origin.

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

After SpaceX went public on NASDAQ on June 12, the most discussed case was not the billionaire executives but Juan Hernandez, a Mexican-American welder who joined in 2015 earning $28 an hour. According to CBS News, after becoming a full-time employee, he received $10,000 in stock, and over the next 10 years, through payroll deductions to buy shares at a discount via the ESPP (Employee Stock Purchase Plan), he accumulated about 6,500 shares worth approximately $1,046,175 after the IPO.

Another overlooked detail 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" story is also a tale 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. He was unfamiliar with the company at the time. "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 payroll deductions via ESPP. Over 10 years, he rose from welder to supervisor. In 2020, he sold some shares to buy property in Texas, while the rest of his 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 of 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 little entrepreneur herself."

Leaving SpaceX: switching to Bezos’s Blue Origin

The headline from Yahoo Finance clearly highlights this contrast: "He turned $10K SpaceX grants into about $880K, then left to weld at Musk’s competitor." Hernandez officially transferred to Blue Origin before the IPO, working as a welder there as well.

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

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 expected to make about 4,400 current and former employees worth over $1 million, with roughly 400 holding over $100 million. On the executive side, CFO Bret Johnsen and COO Gwynne Shotwell each hold stock valued at over $1 billion; director Antonio Gracias about $880k; director Luke Nosek about $65B.

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

Hernandez’s case also illustrates two points. First, buying at a discount via ESPP can amplify the effect of grants over the long term, a often underestimated financial tool for employees. Second, employee "loyalty" and "best financial decision-making" are not always aligned; Hernandez chose to switch to Blue Origin while SpaceX’s stock value was still rising, reflecting the realistic dynamics 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: "Mexican-American Welder at SpaceX Turns IPO Stock into Over $1M, Has Moved to Blue Origin"
• Original author: Elponcrab