India, June 14 -- SpaceX is now valued at roughly $2.1 trillion, the sixth largest in America, ahead of Broadcom, Tesla and Meta. It was the largest IPO ever conducted. It made Musk, on paper, the world's first trillionaire

In 1602, the States-General of the Dutch Republic granted a charter to the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the Dutch East India Company. The document did two things at once. It invited the burghers of Amsterdam to buy tradeable shares, which makes the VOC the ancestor of every initial public offering since. And it gave the company the right to raise armies, build forts, coin its own money, and sign treaties with sovereign princes. A private firm was handed the powers of a state. By some contested reckonings the VOC...