NEWS: He came from Mexico and welded rockets for SpaceX at $28 an hour. His stock is now worth almost $1 million.
Juan Hernandez joined SpaceX as a contract welder in 2015, the Wall Street Journal reports. When he went full time, the company gave him $10,000 in stock that vested over five years. He bought more from every paycheck.
In 2020 he started selling small pieces of the stake, back when SpaceX was worth $36 billion. That money bought properties around Texas, where he and his wife now run a small real estate business.
The shares he kept are worth around $880,000 at the IPO price.
"It's put me in a comfortable position for life."
These days he welds rockets for Blue Origin. The SpaceX stock comes with him.
NEWS: SpaceX's IPO is about to turn a 27-year-old ship engineer into an overnight millionaire.
Maryellyn Musselman, 27, spent two years working on a SpaceX recovery boat off the Florida coast, the Wall Street Journal reports.
SpaceX gave her stock as part of her pay. In her industry, that almost never happens. She also used 10% of every paycheck to buy more.
She won't say how much it is worth today. Her plan is simple: use the money to start her own repair business in Chesapeake, Virginia.
She bought a little every payday and held on. Thousands of SpaceX workers did the same. The stock starts trading June 12.
"Mariners are not usually stock owners in their companies, they're not always under benefits."
Thousands of stories like hers cash in on June 12.