He Started at $28 an Hour. Then SpaceX Made Him a Millionaire

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By S. JHA

Juan Hernandez came from Mexico, took a welding job at SpaceX for $28 an hour. When SpaceX went public, he became a millionaire.

New Delhi, June 13, 2026 — Fortune favours brave and wealth showers on those who persevere. That’s an old saying. In the case of Juan Hernandez, it was fortune and perseverance welded firmly into an unbreakable bond.

On a day when Elon Musk became world’s first trillionaire, Hernandez also hit the hotspot — becoming a millionaire. If Musk had dug goldmines in America after immigrating from South Africa, Hernandez also had similar journey as he landed a job of welder at SpaceX after coming from Mexico.

Hernandez not just welded parts of spaceships. He built his castle of fortune and wealth — day by day, part by part. Working for $28 per hour, Hernandez bagged SpaceX stocks worth $10,000.

After SpaceX debuted on the Wall Street with gains of over 26 per cent on Friday, Hernandez had his wealth coded into the secrets of the bourses. He just had played an old trick — investing into conviction, each month with small contributions.

A friend had led him to the workshop of SpaceX. A welding gig. He had thought of it as just another contract job. He was earning $28 an hour. In one decade, that worker stands transformed, turning into an investing legend.

SpaceX’s shares began trading on the Nasdaq on Friday under the ticker symbol SPCX. The company’s long-awaited $75 billion initial public offering had finally seen the light of the day.

Hernandez’s roughly 6,500 shares closed at $160.95 — valuing his holdings at $1,046,175. He had quietly become a millionaire.

Hernandez first heard about SpaceX from a friend who figured Hernandez’s background made him a good fit. He took the job without hesitation. “I thought in my head, I don’t know what SpaceX is, but let’s go,” he told CBS News correspondent Jo Ling Kent.

When the company made him a full-time employee, it handed him something he had never received at any previous job. “It wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t know anything about it then,” he told CBS News.

The stock worth $10,000 of SpaceX, at the time, was with no public price and no immediate liquidity. Most workers in his position might have ignored it. Hernandez did the opposite: he kept buying more shares with a portion of every paycheck, month after month, for a decade.

The patience was almost biblical in its discipline. Behind those years were construction sites, temporary jobs, and the welding trade — and a chance decision that intersected with the rise of one of the most ambitious companies of the 21st century.

Hernandez’s story is exceptional in its detail but not entirely singular in its category. SpaceX’s record market debut is set to turn more than 4,400 current and former employees into millionaires, with about 400 of them holding stakes worth over $100 million each.

Unlike the software IPOs that dominate Wall Street narratives, this wealth is not concentrated purely in corner offices. To become the world’s most dominant rocket company, Musk needed welders, machinists, technicians, and manufacturing specialists by the thousands — many of whom were offered company stock as part of their compensation. Hernandez was one of them.

Tom Mueller, who built the rockets that made the company possible and was hired as its first employee in 2002, left in 2020 but held onto his shares. Musk always told staff their salary mattered less than their equity, Mueller recalled, and “that day is here.”

For Hernandez, that day arrived with characteristic quiet. He now works at Blue Origin, the Jeff Bezos-owned rocket startup. His wealth has not changed his outlook. As an immigrant, Hernandez said he was taught to work hard, and that newfound wealth won’t get in the way of that. He plans to keep working and pass on the lessons he has learned to his children.

Those lessons are already being taught. He is now teaching his three kids — including his 16-year-old daughter — how to invest based on what he learned from owning SpaceX stock. His daughter is already a stakeholder in Meta and a handful of other companies.

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