Inside Elon Musk's empire | BBC Americast

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 15:12:06 +0000

The US economy backs Elon Musk’s vision for sending people to Mars, the moon and beyond with SpaceX. Elon Musk’s rocket, telecommunications and artificial intelligence company SpaceX has listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange with a value of $2.2 trillion; making him the world’s first trillionaire in the process.

Other AI companies, including Open AI and Anthropic have plans to follow suit but what does that mean for the US economy and global financial stability?

In this episode, Justin speaks to Ryan Mac - an investigative technology reporter for the New York Times who has extensive experience covering Elon Musk and other leaders in the AI field.

SpaceX’s public valuation has made millionaires of many of its past and current employees and generated around $85 billion for the company; money that Elon Musk says is essential to fulfil the company’s plans to build bases on the Moon, put data centres into orbit and send human beings to Mars.

But what happens if those plans remain unfulfilled?

As more companies offer shares to investors and the general public, Justin and Ryan explore whether America is gambling on the promise of AI? And is the US economy becoming dangerously reliant on one industry?

00:00 Intro
00:55 What does it mean to be a trillionaire?
01:41 SpaceX’s stock market debut
05:21 Why investors rushed to buy SpaceX shares
10:09 Why Elon Musk divides opinion
12:08 The promises Musk has and hasn’t delivered
22:03 What happens if the AI boom slows down?
27:20 Outro

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