Maryellyn Musselman knows something, and she’s not sharing.
A 27-year-old mariner from Chesapeake, Virginia, is one of thousands of current and former SpaceX employees who, on June 12, 2026, will wake up with shares in one of the most anticipated IPOs in stock market history. She knows what the shares are worth. She just is not telling.
Musselman joined SpaceX in 2022 as an engineering officer on a ship that retrieved rocket parts that fell into the ocean off the Florida coast. She saved 10% of her paycheck into equity during her two years at the company, on top of the equity she was granted as part of her compensation. She knew it was a risk, but thought it might pay off and help her to eventually start her own business.
It was a strange bet for a woman in her line of work. “Mariners are not usually stock owners in their companies; they're not always under benefits,” she said to the Wall Street Journal. But she leaned in anyway, held on through the years of secondary sales that many colleagues cashed out through, and kept her cards close to her vest. Now, with SpaceX set to go public in a matter of days, Musselman has declined to say how much her shares are worth today. Her goal, she says, is to have a repair-based business in Chesapeake, Virginia, but just how much runway her SpaceX stake will give her to get there, she’s keeping to herself.
When asked if she plans to sell right away, she said, “I think it will be an 11th-hour decision.”
Not just executives, baristas, welders, and mariners too
Musselman’s silence is understandable. The numbers are staggering, even for folks lower down the org chart.
SpaceX IPO is scheduled for June 12, 2026, with an expected offering price of $135 per share and an estimated total market value of $1.77 trillion. SPCX will trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol SPCX. At that number, even a small equity stake accumulated over two years of contributions from paychecks can be a life-changing number.
