Elon Musk crossed into trillionaire territory on Friday after SpaceX began trading on Nasdaq at 150150, and Bernie Sanders quickly turned the moment into a warning about wealth, power and the gains Musk has made since Donald Trump's election. Forbes said the jump pushed Musk's net worth above 11 trillion, making him the first person to reach that mark by its calculation.
Sanders has spent years making the case that extreme wealth concentration is not simply an economic problem but a political one. Earlier this year, he and Ro Khanna proposed a 5% annual wealth tax on 938 billionaires in the US, and he has repeatedly used public appearances and social media to argue that billionaire fortunes sit uneasily beside stagnant living standards for ordinary Americans.
Elon Musk and the Donald Trump Election Argument
Sanders made that case again on June 1212, when he posted a statement on X after Musk's fortune climbed higher. He wrote that Musk's rise to trillionaire status was 'not a time to celebrate. It's a call to action to take on the unprecedented income and wealth inequality that not exists and the greed and power of a ruling class that it destroying the social fabric of America.' The wording was his, and the message was plain enough even if the syntax was not.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) June 12, 2026
He went further by tying Musk's wealth directly to Trump's return to power. Sanders said US democracy 'cannot survive' when one man, who contributed $290 million to get Trump elected, becomes $700 billion richer since Trump's election. He also argued that the economy cannot hold together when one person owns more wealth than the bottom half of society, while 60% of people live pay cheque to pay cheque and childhood poverty remains so high. Those figures and comparisons were Sanders' claims in his post, not independently verified in the source material.
The senator also cast Musk and his 'fellow Oligarchs' as men who want both wealth and control, then called for Americans to 'fight back' and build a government that 'works for all.' It was classic Sanders, blunt to the point of abrasion, but that has long been the point. He was not treating Musk's milestone as a curiosity of the markets. He was treating it as evidence.
Musk, for his part, has hardly hidden his contempt for Sanders' politics. In a December 2025 post on X, he said his wealth was a function of what his companies produced for the public and took a swipe at the Vermont senator, writing, 'I am a maker, not a taker like the Bernie Sanders type of politicians of the world.' The source article did not include any fresh response from Musk to Friday's market move, so any wider reading of his position should be taken with caution.
How Elon Musk Was Propelled to Trillionaire Status
The market trigger was straightforward enough. SpaceX debuted on Nasdaq at $150 a share, up 11% from its $135 IPO price, and that move alone was enough to lift Musk's estimated fortune above the trillion-dollar line, according to Forbes. CNBC reported that before trading ended on Friday, SpaceX's market capitalisation had crossed 22 trillion. That is the arithmetic behind the milestone, even if the symbolism has done most of the travelling.
But taxing wealth so normal people can afford to see a doctor and not go bankrupt over inhalers is radical left. OK https://t.co/ajaujDXEau
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 12, 2026
Other politicians wasted little time joining the backlash. Responding to a Financial Times post on X, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote, 'But taxing wealth so normal people can afford to see a doctor and not go bankrupt over inhalers is radical left. OK.' Elizabeth Warren was terser, posting, 'This needs to be a wake-up call.' Pramila Jayapal shared a video on X criticising Musk's wealth and backing a wealth tax, while New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani wrote, 'Reason #1,000,000,000,000 why we should tax the rich.'
That chorus matters because it shows how quickly Musk's fortune stopped being a business story and became a political one. The online reaction was mixed, the source said, but much of the argument returned to income inequality and whether fortunes on this scale can be squared with a functioning democracy. For now, the trillionaire label rests on a fast market debut and on Forbes' estimate rather than any formal declaration from Musk himself. Even so, by the close of trading on Friday, CNBC said SpaceX had already cleared a 22 trillion market cap.
