A Space Billionaire's Fortune Soars as He Strives to Beat China to the Moon

Kam Ghaffarian, a serial entrepreneur, saw his net worth increase to $5 billion as a result of the 1,200% increase in Intuitive Machines shares following its IPO last week.

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Kam Ghaffarian has always desired to visit the moon, but not in the Reddit sense.

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The space tycoon has amassed multiple billions of dollars since his company, Intuitive Machines Inc., completed a SPAC merger. Since its IPO last week, Intuitive shares have increased by as much as 1,200%, forcing repeated trading halts and making it the best-performing stock to have done so.

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The Houston-based business, which has a contract with NASA, is in a good position to build the first American spacecraft to land intact on the Moon since the Apollo era as the space race with China intensifies. This month, the US space agency changed the target of its mission to the area near the Moon's south pole, where China intends to set down a lunar rover.

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Another reason for Intuitive's sharp growth was the fact that many stockholders converted their shares into cash at the time of its SPAC acquisition, leaving tiny amounts of the combined company's equities available for trading. Also, the company and its LUNR ticker were widely discussed on Reddit in the stock-speculating communities that once propelled stock surges for companies like Gamestop Inc. and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc.

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Due to the quick increase, Ghaffarian, who owns almost half of the business, now has a stake worth $3.2 billion, up from less than $500 million just one week ago. Nonetheless, it just makes up a portion of the multi-millionaire space entrepreneur's wealth. Iranian-born Ghaffarian already owns a $1 billion investment in X-Energy, a firm that designs nuclear reactors and just announced a merger with another company for specific purposes. Axiom Space, a privately held company that co-founded him, is now conducting commercial astronaut trips to the International Space Station and intends to construct its own station for low-Earth orbit.

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According to the Trade Algo, Ghaffarian's total holdings are worth $5 billion. Unlike Elon Musk of Tesla Inc. and Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com Inc., who invested heavily in space travel after finding success in other endeavors, he has mostly made his fortune in the commercial space industry.

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Requests for comment from Ghaffarian did not immediately receive a response. At 9:52 a.m., Intuitive shares fell to $76.01. New York, where. 

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His track record has made it possible for him to draw investors in the competitive space startup market. With yearly turnover of more than $500 million, he turned one of his first businesses, Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies, into the second-largest supplier of engineering services to NASA. By the time he sold the business to KBR for $355 million in 2018, he was the only shareholder (his former partner, Harold Stinger, is now a pastor at a Baptist church in Virginia).

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According to Purvi Gandhi, managing partner of Quain Investments, which includes Axiom in its portfolio, Ghaffarian is therefore skilled at developing business-generating ties with the government. Gandhi stated that she saw investing in Axiom as a risky "moonshot" and a long-term insurance policy against her company's bets on climate technologies. 

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The space race is inflamed and exceedingly heated, she declared. Because so many business owners have little to no expertise raising capital and are unable to establish an income stream, "a lot of firms don't thrill me."

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Axiom has agreements with other nations in addition to NASA, including those of Italy and Saudi Arabia, which intends to launch the first Saudi woman into space on the company's subsequent flight.

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The rocket manufacturer has agreements with Axiom Space for human flights and additional arrangements with Intuitive Machines for Moon missions, according to Ghaffarian, and Musk's SpaceX has contacts with both companies.

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In addition, Ghaffarian is developing Quantum Space, a fourth business, which will send a number of satellites into cislunar space, or the region between the Earth and the Moon. In December, the business received $15 million in capital from Jackson, Wyoming-based Prime Movers Lab.

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Ghaffarian claimed that watching the Apollo 11 flight as a young boy in Iran changed the course of his life and inspired him to relocate to the US at the age of 18 in order to seek higher education. He graduated from Catholic University of America with a degree in engineering and from George Washington University with a master's degree in information technology.

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In a January 2022 interview, Ghaffarian said, "I don't know whether I'm a billionaire or not, but I'm incredibly enthused about making progress for our society." Although he had long fantasized about going into space, he said, his several businesses would probably keep him on Earth.

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Priorities are more important than affordability, according to Ghaffarian.