Few business leaders have been as deeply embedded in popular ​culture as Elon Musk, the ambitious entrepreneur who has become a central figure in internet culture and amassed a fortune that has just made him the world’s first trillionaire.

At a time when concerns about inequality are high and public attitudes toward the ultra-wealthy have ⁠soured, Musk has managed to retain a loyal following despite his stratospheric net ⁠worth and without the folksy persona that endeared other tycoons such as Warren Buffett to the masses.

While admirers view Musk’s no-filter style as part of his appeal, critics have accused him of wielding oligarch-like power, raised concerns about governance at his companies and objected to his increasingly partisan political interventions.

Still, SpaceX, the sprawling rocket, ​satellite and AI company that together with electric-car maker Tesla form the center of Musk’s empire, raised a record $75 billion in ​its initial ⁠public offering on Thursday, highlighting investor enthusiasm for his business ventures.

Prior to the share sale, Forbes pegged his net worth at roughly $780 billion, far ahead of the man next in line, Alphabet co-founder Larry Page.

“The second richest person has been hovering around $300 billion, so about less than one-third of what Musk can potentially be worth tomorrow,” said Matt Durot, deputy editor at Forbes Wealth. “And only one other person, (Oracle founder) Larry Ellison, has ever been worth $400 billion.”

Most of Musk’s wealth now rests with SpaceX, where he holds a stake worth roughly $866 billion.

Along with Tesla and the rest of his properties, his net worth will exceed $1.1 trillion when the stock begins trading on Friday, according to Reuters calculations based on company filings. The tally includes stock components that would vest over time.

Musk became a household name through Tesla and SpaceX before expanding his influence with the $44-billion acquisition of social media platform Twitter in 2022. The deal gave him a direct channel to hundreds of millions of users and made him a prominent voice on issues ranging from politics and immigration to government spending and free speech.

His move into politics, particularly his role in U.S. President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) last year, has been among his most contentious ventures. The political fallout coincided with weakening Tesla ⁠sales ⁠in several international markets in 2025 as protests and consumer boycotts targeted the electric vehicle maker.

The Elon premium

Musk, 54, was born in Pretoria, South Africa, to a Canadian mother and South African father. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1997.

He took over as Tesla’s CEO in 2008 with the conviction that electric vehicles could combine high performance with software-driven features, helping redefine the global automotive industry. Some auto-industry watchers say Tesla’s success – and its trillion-dollar-plus market cap – helped prod traditional automakers to pivot to electric cars.

Many investors are betting he can repeat the feat in space and artificial intelligence. Yet SpaceX remains cash-hungry, and much of the company’s valuation rests on technologies that may take years or decades to become commercially viable.

Beyond Tesla and SpaceX, Musk has co-founded five other companies, including tunneling startup The Boring Company and brain implant maker Neuralink.

As CEO of Tesla, Musk has courted controversy and praise in equal measure. He is credited with turning Tesla into the world’s most valuable automaker. Executives at legacy automakers dismissed the threat for years, ⁠skeptical that a startup car company could figure out how to mass-produce electric vehicles profitably.

“He renewed the world’s respect for American ingenuity in automotive engineering,” said Bob Lutz, a former General Motors vice chairman.

At the same time, Tesla has faced legal challenges and shareholder concerns tied to its storied CEO, particularly his 2018 pay package, once worth $56 billion.

Musk’s influence has become so pervasive that market observers have dubbed the network of businesses ​around him the “Muskonomy.”

The phenomenon has given rise to what some investors call the “Elon premium,” a valuation boost driven as much by faith in Musk’s vision as by traditional financial metrics.

“Much ​like Tesla, SpaceX is a bet on Elon Musk,” said Matt Kennedy, senior strategist at Renaissance Capital, a provider of IPO-focused research and ETFs.

“A market cap of $1.5 trillion-$2 trillion would certainly throw all traditional valuation methodologies out the window, and is instead best characterized as the ‘Elon Musk premium.'”

‘Our Einstein’

The concentration of influence around a ⁠single entrepreneur has amplified concerns about ‌corporate governance, conflicts ‌of interest and the risks of tying company fortunes too closely to one individual.

Over the years, Musk has turned clashes with ⁠regulators, billionaires, short sellers, journalists and media organizations into recurring public battles that often unfolded on social ‌media.

Musk’s alliance with Trump followed a familiar pattern. After helping bankroll Trump’s return to the White House and serving in a senior advisory role through the administration’s DOGE initiative, Musk became one of the president’s closest corporate allies.

The relationship later ​fractured amid disagreements over policy and spending, spilling into a ⁠public feud. Though the two have since struck a more conciliatory tone, their falling-out highlighted the increasingly blurred lines between Musk’s business empire ⁠and political ambitions.

Yet for many investors, concerns about Musk’s often unconventional behavior are outweighed by his track record of turning ambitious ideas into some of the world’s most valuable companies.

“Elon is ⁠the Edison of our time,” JPMorgan ​Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said during a recent conversation with Musk.

The banker, a former adversary of Musk in a prolonged legal battle, has since become an admirer. Dimon told CNBC last year that the pair had “hugged it out,” and hailed Musk as “our Einstein.”

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SpaceX is set to begin trading on ​Nasdaq on Friday after investors poured $75 billion into the world’s biggest IPO ever, betting that Elon Musk’s lofty space, communications and AI ambitions can justify a $1.77 trillion valuation.

The landmark listing cemented Musk’s status as the first trillionaire ⁠ever and propelled SpaceX into the ranks of the world’s most valuable ⁠companies – even though the firm posted a loss of nearly $5 billion last year and generated only a fraction of the revenue brought in by similarly valued tech giants.

The stock’s performance will be a test for the so-called “Musk premium,” which has been the force behind Tesla’s $1 trillion-plus ​valuation. It will also be closely watched for signals on investor appetite ahead of forthcoming IPOs for ​AI heavyweights ⁠Anthropic and OpenAI.

With SpaceX widely viewed as a dress rehearsal for a new generation of mega-listings, market participants will also be watching how smoothly the debut unfolds. Exchanges and underwriters are under pressure to demonstrate they can handle the listing’s extraordinary order volumes and avoid a repeat of the technical failures that marred Meta’s 2012 debut.

Shares will likely not trade until the middle of the trading day, as the exchange collects buy and sell orders and underwriters delay trading until supply and demand is balanced. SpaceX priced the IPO at $135 apiece and sold 555.56 million shares.

The record IPO is a culmination of Musk’s long-held ambitions in space and technology, and has stood out for rewriting Wall Street’s IPO playbook and drawing legions of retail investors into the market.

World’s largest IPO

At $75 billion raised, the deal’s proceeds more than doubled that of Saudi Aramco, the previous record-holder, in its 2019 listing. Its sale made SpaceX the first U.S. trillion-dollar debut and seventh-largest U.S. company by market capitalization.

Its valuation could rise further should underwriters exercise their right to sell additional shares, a ⁠decision typically ⁠made within 30 days after the offering.

Although SpaceX may have to wait for entry into the S&P 500, its expected fast-track inclusion in the Nasdaq 100 will soon make it a major holding for passive funds and ETFs that track the index, creating a fresh source of demand for its shares. It will take about a month before it gets added to that index under Nasdaq’s new fast-entry rules, as opposed to a typical wait of as much as a year.

Some analysts expect SpaceX’s debut to trigger a reshuffling of investor portfolios, creating selling pressure on other technology heavyweights as funds rotate into the stock.

The frenzied interest presents opportunity and peril, as some retail investors may chase the stock if they miss out on the IPO, said Jay Woods, chief market strategist at Freedom Capital Markets. SpaceX set aside 30% of the offering for ⁠retail investors to capitalize on Musk’s popularity with individuals who have helped drive massive gains in Tesla shares.

“Historically, those investors tend to be the most vulnerable if momentum reverses,” Woods said. “I think there will be better opportunities to enter this name down the road.”

A $28.5 trillion market opportunity

For all the excitement surrounding the IPO, determining what SpaceX is actually worth remains a ​difficult valuation exercise. SpaceX said its market opportunity spans $28.5 trillion, a figure it called the largest in human history.

With its leading position in space – the ​firm says its operation is responsible for more than four-fifths of the mass launched into orbit over the past three years – and revenues from Starlink, some investors said it has a strong foundation upon which to build.

John Belton, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, said the best ⁠comparable to SpaceX is ‌Musk’s electric vehicle ‌company Tesla, as each has an established business and “a moonshot opportunity on the other side.”

“For Tesla, that’s things ⁠like humanoid robotics and other future applications. For SpaceX, it’s the AI business,” he said.

The ‌hurdles at its enormous valuation include efforts by rivals such as Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to accelerate the commercialization of space and pursue government contracts in a bid to unlock new markets ​beyond Earth. Morningstar analysts earlier this month said it ⁠is more fairly valued around $780 billion, less than half of its opening market cap.

“This is not a name ⁠you’re buying based on fundamentals. For me, the analogy is Amazon. This was a company that changed the way we live,” said Nancy Tengler, CEO ⁠and CIO of Laffer Tengler Investments.

“If the ​IPO comes out at $135 and the stock drops to $100, that’s not ideal, but it wouldn’t change our long-term view. We want to participate.”

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Railway infrastructure could be one of the areas in which a major European multilateral lender could cooperate with Türkiye, its senior official said, according to a transcript of an interview released on Thursday.

“Railway infrastructure could be one of the areas where we can contribute in the future,” said Robert de Groot, vice president of the European Investment Bank (EIB).

Answering questions posed by Anadolu Agency (AA) regarding the bank’s relations with Türkiye and its activities across the European Union, de Groot first evaluated the financing agreements the EIB has signed with the Türkiye Development and Investment Bank (TKYB) and Türk Eximbank.

The bank recently said it would provide 200 million euros (more than $230 million) to Türkiye to back investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency and sustainable industrial production.

Highlighting the importance of green energy and energy efficiency, which are the focus of the agreements, de Groot underscored that efficiency holds “a significant place” on the business agenda.

“Energy efficiency means reducing the need for energy, which we are to some extent dependent on today due to geopolitical developments, by consuming less. Companies are looking for ways to reduce their energy consumption and maximize the use of renewable energy. Therefore, whether in Türkiye or elsewhere in Europe, energy efficiency holds a significant place on the agenda of almost every businessperson you talk to,” he told AA.

De Groot also addressed the impact of the credit they provided in 2023 for the earthquake zone, sharing his observations from his visit to Hatay, one of the cities harshly impacted by powerful tremors that struck southeast Türkiye in February that year.

“People have suffered deeply and continue to do so. This has affected me profoundly. Nevertheless, their determination to rebuild Antakya and Hatay also impressed me,” he said.

“Rebuilding a city is not easy, and various challenges inevitably arise. However, I was pleased to see the progress in the work aiming to provide people with access to drinking water, a responsibility the EIB has undertaken.”

De Groot stated that he sees the visits they have made to Hatay, Ankara and Istanbul as the start of a new era in the relations between the EIB and Türkiye, hoping for a strong project pool to be formed quickly in this context.

Noting that their representation in Istanbul will work to determine new projects that the EIB can finance, de Groot spoke about future cooperation areas.

“I know that Türkiye has big plans to expand and modernize its railway infrastructure. Within the EU, we are working in the same area. We have significant expertise in this regard. Therefore, railway infrastructure could be one of the areas where we can contribute in the future,” he said.

EU defense push

De Groot also touched upon EIB’s activities across the EU, pointing to the need for EU countries to increase investments, especially in the defense sector, and the commitments of NATO countries to increase defense spending.

Telling that EU leaders have requested financial support from the EIB in the field of defense, De Groot said they continue to work in this direction.

“A significant portion of our financing to the EU is directed towards infrastructure, which has not been sufficiently invested in for many years,” he maintained.

De Groot stated: “We are investing in R&D efforts for new technologies. We are supporting the increase in production capacity of the defense industry in Europe. Additionally, we are trying to support SMEs involved in the supply chains of major European defense companies.”

Provided resources

Operating as the bank of the European Union, the EIB has been offering loans and technical support to thousands of projects in more than 160 countries since 1958, making it one of the largest multilateral development banks in the world.

The bank, which started its activities in Türkiye in 1965, has provided a total of 30.86 billion euros in financing for 263 projects in the country so far, primarily in areas such as transportation, urban infrastructure, climate action, energy, agriculture, and the development of the private sector, as per AA.

Notable agreements between the bank and Türkiye include a 400 million euro loan agreement signed to repair water and wastewater infrastructure in the region following the earthquakes centered in Kahramanmaraş on Feb. 6, 2023.

Additionally, two separate financing agreements totaling 200 million euros were signed in recent days from the bank’s resources. Thus, 100 million euros will be provided for sustainable industrial investments through TKYB, and 100 million euros will be available for green financing projects by Turkish exporters through Türk Eximbank.

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The Turkish central bank kept its key policy rate unchanged at 37% on Thursday, holding steady for a third straight meeting as it monitors the inflation impact of the Iran war.

The Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye (CBRT) also cited that the underlying trend of inflation “decreased slightly in May,” while also suggesting that the first quarter data points “to a slowdown in economic activity and leading indicators suggest a continued weak course in domestic demand.”

“The underlying trend of inflation, which increased in April due in part to higher energy prices, following its rise in the first months of the year, decreased slightly in May,” the bank said following its closely watched Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting.

However, the bank warned that energy prices “remain volatile and elevated,” amid geopolitical developments and the resulting uncertainties.

Oil and gas prices have surged significantly since the start of the Iran conflict, with Brent crude briefly hitting peaks of nearly $120 a barrel. Following easing in recent weeks, the prices have spiked again in recent days amid the renewed risk of attacks between the U.S. and Iran.

Analysts were widely expecting the bank to keep the cautious approach and leave rates on hold this week. A smaller number of economists were forecasting a hike. In a Reuters poll, 12 of the 14 economists surveyed predicted no change to borrowing costs, while two forecast a rate hike.

The committee has also kept the central bank’s overnight lending rate and the overnight borrowing rate at 40% and 35.5%, respectively. The bank uses the rate corridor to adjust the cost of funding to the market when necessary without changing the benchmark rate.

Annual inflation in Türkiye edged up to 32.6% in May from 32.4% in April, official data showed last week.

Since the war started at the end of February, the CBRT has halted an easing cycle that began in late 2024 and taken other liquidity steps that pushed the lira overnight rate up to the 40% limit.

Impact ‘closely monitored’

The war-related surge in energy prices has weighed on import-heavy economies like Türkiye, although authorities have introduced measures to cushion its impact on consumers, mainly through a so-called “sliding scale” system that limited fuel prices.

In its quarterly inflation report in May, the central bank raised its end-2026 interim inflation target to 24% from 16%, forecasting that the short-term inflationary effects of the Iran war would remain “pronounced.”

“The impact of geopolitical developments on the inflation outlook through the cost channel, economic activity and expectations is closely monitored,” the bank also said.

“The tight monetary policy stance, which will be maintained until price stability is achieved, will strengthen the disinflation process through demand, exchange rate, and expectation channels,” it added.

It also reiterated that the committee “will determine the policy rate by taking into account realized and expected inflation and its underlying trend in a way to ensure the tightness required by the projected disinflation path in line with the interim targets.”

The bank also underscored its meeting-to-meeting approach and “focus on inflation outlook.”

The Turkish lira held steady at 46.1550 against the dollar after the announcement, while the main Istanbul share index was slightly higher.

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The European Central Bank (ECB) on Thursday became the first major central bank to hike interest rates in response to the Iran war as policymakers wrestle with how to confront the inflation fed by sharply higher oil prices.

The ECB’s rate-setting council raised its benchmark rate to 2.25% from 2%, where it had been for a year. The move comes ahead of rate-setting meetings next week at the Federal Reserve (Fed), the Bank of Japan (BOJ), and the Bank of England (BoE).

Oil prices have risen sharply due to Iran choking off the flow of crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz, the sea passage for a fifth of the world’s oil and fuel products during normal times.

Raising rates aims to dampen the consumer price inflation fed by higher costs for products made from crude such as gasoline, diesel fuel, cooking gas and heating oil.

International benchmark Brent crude was trading just below $92 per barrel on Thursday, up from around $73 on the eve of the war. That has helped push inflation to 3.2% in May in the 21 countries that use the euro currency, above the ECB’s target of 2%.

But ECB policymakers must also consider the impact of higher borrowing costs on an economy showing only modest growth.

That has led analysts to think Thursday’s hike will be a one-and-done moment, aimed mainly at signaling to financial markets that the bank is determined not to get behind the curve if inflation spirals higher.

Raising benchmark rates influences what lenders charge throughout the economy, increasing the cost of borrowing money to buy things and thus dampening demand for goods. Higher central bank rates can send interest costs higher for home purchases, investment in new factories, and government borrowing.

The ECB may be able to get by with only one or two increases because the inflationary surge may be milder than feared, said Carsten Brzeski, global chief of macro at ING bank.

That is because consumers burned by the post-pandemic spike in inflation are in no mood to pay higher prices, leaving businesses little choice but to swallow higher energy costs.

“The pass-through of higher energy and input prices to final consumption will be limited due to a lack of ability and willingness of consumers to actually pay for these higher prices,” he wrote in an emailed comment to The Associated Press (AP).

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The World Bank slashed on Thursday its global ​growth forecast for 2026 to 2.5% due to the war in the Middle East, warning growth could slow to just 1.3% if energy supply disruptions prove more severe and come with substantial stress in financial ⁠markets.

Global growth reached 2.9% in 2025, the bank said in ⁠its semi-annual Global Economic Prospects, up 0.2 percentage points from its estimate in January.

Its 2026 forecast is down 0.1 percentage point from January, the lowest seen since the COVID-19 pandemic that began in late 2019.

The bank lowered forecasts for two-thirds of countries as a result of ​the war, with the biggest cuts affecting the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Iraq and other countries in the ​Middle ⁠East whose energy exports have been hit hard by the conflict.

The World Bank’s stark outlook comes as the war launched by U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28 drags into a fourth month.

It has sent energy prices up sharply due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, renewed inflationary pressures worldwide and fueled expectations of tighter monetary policy across many countries.

Fertilizer prices are also up sharply, raising concerns about a major food supply crisis.

Oil prices closed nearly $2 higher on Wednesday after U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. would attack Iran “very hard” if no peace deal was finalized, following one of the most significant exchanges of fire since an April ceasefire.

The World Bank said its baseline forecast assumed an average Brent crude oil price of $94 for the year, up 36% from 2025, and that the worst disruptions to energy supplies would abate by the end of July, with global headline inflation seen at 4%.

It said growth could slow to 2.1% if the energy disruptions lasted longer and oil prices averaged $115 per barrel this year, which ⁠could ⁠drive inflation to 4.4%. The outlook would worsen further, with growth decelerating to just 1.3%, if the energy shock affected financial markets, resulting in lower energy prices, greater volatility and weaker confidence, it said.

“These risk scenarios show how quickly the outlook could weaken if energy and financial pressure reinforce each other,” Ayhan Kose, the World Bank’s deputy chief economist, said. If the energy shock triggered a financial market shock, confidence could erode quickly, he said.

Growth lower than last decade

Global growth is expected to improve to 2.8% in 2027 and 2028, but that remains 0.4 percentage points below the average rates seen during the 2010s due to a slew of factors, including slower population growth, slower private investment growth, falling public investment, rising public debt and slower growth in trade, World Bank chief economist Indermit Gill said.

“The world economy is a lot less resilient today than it was in ⁠2008 and even as compared with 2018,” Gill told reporters, predicting the next years would be marked by high policy uncertainty, inflationary pressures and high interest rates.

Weak growth in developing economies has stalled progress toward advanced-economy income levels, with dozens of developing countries other than China and India looking at a “lost decade” in which they saw no progress on narrowing their ​per capita income gap with advanced economies, the report said.

Developing economies have been hit harder by the war, with the bank now projecting growth at a ​post-pandemic low of 3.6% this year, down from 4.4% in 2025, the bank said.

The bank maintained its forecast of 2.2% growth in the U.S. economy in 2026, but said that could taper off to 2.1% in 2027 and 2% in 2028. The euro area was expected ⁠to grow by ‌0.8% in 2026, down ‌from 1.4% in 2025. Japan’s gross domestic product (GDP) was forecast to grow 0.7% in 2026, down from 1.1% in ⁠2025.

The World Bank forecast GDP growth of 4.2% in China in 2026, a downward revision of ‌0.2 percentage points, after 5% growth in 2025.

Middle East countries hit hardest

The lender slashed its forecast for GDP growth in the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan by 2.7 percentage points to ​1.6% in 2026, down from 4% in 2025, but ⁠said growth in the region could rebound to 5% in 2027.

The United Arab Emirates was expected to see ⁠growth of 2.4% in 2026, down sharply from the January forecast of 5% and the 2025 rate of 6.2%. The bank also lowered Türkiye’s 2026 ⁠GDP growth forecast by 0.9 percentage points ​to 2.8%.

The World Bank said India remained the fastest-growing large economy in the world, with its GDP seen growing by 6.6% in 2026, after growth of 7% in 2025. Growth rates in India were expected to remain fairly high for the next two decades, Gill said.

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