1.  The first trillionaire.  Analysts at Morgan Stanley say that Elon Musk could become the world’s first trillionaire based on his ownership of SpaceX rather than Tesla.  Yes, so far Elon has gotten most of his stack from Tesla, but the analysts think that he could make boatloads more from his “fledgling” space exploration company, SpaceX.

Why?  SpaceX was valued at $100B in a secondary share sale this month (which BTW makes it the world’s second-biggest privately held company behind the internet firm ByteDance).

And Musk owns around 48% of SpaceX.  SpaceX’s Starship reusable rockets may one day be able to take people and cargo to the moon and Mars.  This has the potential to transform investor expectations around the space industry and skyrocket SpaceX’s valuation in the future.

The analysts noted:  “More than one client has told us if Elon Musk were to become the first trillionaire ... it won’t be because of Tesla. Others have said SpaceX may eventually be the most highly valued company in the world – in any industry.”

2.  Starlab Space Station Set for Launch in 2027.  Nanoracks, Voyager Space and Lockheed Martin announced plans to get a free-flying private space station(pictured above) up and running in low Earth orbit by 2027. The station, dubbed Starlab, will be a tourist destination as well as a research and manufacturing hub that helps foster the growth of an off-Earth economy.

3.  Gitai’s successful demo in space.  Gitai is a Japanese space startup company that is building robots to do work for the commercial space.  The company successfully conducted a tech demo of its autonomous robotic arm inside the International Space Station last week which is a key step on the roadmap of providing robots as a service in space.  The S1 robotic arm performed two tasks: operating cables and switches, and assembling structures and panels.

We wrote about the company’s robotic tuneups in space back in March: you can check out that story here.

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