Who will benefit most from SpaceX IPO? Mostly Elon — and a few from his inner circle

While there are some shocking revelations in SpaceX’s S-1 as it gets ready to become a public company, Elon Musk’s total control of the company perhaps isn’t one of them. I could argue that the oddball provision where Elon Musk gets up to a billion more shares to add to his already oversized, company-controlling cache once a million people are living on Mars (yes, really), is perhaps the most jaw-dropping. It is also fairly unserious. Musk controls and can vote those shares now, by the way. But even a billion extra super-voting rights shares are immaterial in this company’s setup because Musk is, by miles, the largest shareholder in the company. He owns just under 850 million Class A shares, entitled to 1 vote per share, and another nearly 5.6 billion Class B shares, entitled to 10 votes per share. That includes the billion shares contingent on a million people living in a SpaceX company-town colony on Mars. Sci-fi conditions aside, there are a handful of people who stand to benefit most should the SpaceX IPO be a success and the stock continue to do well in the future: the 5% shareholders. These are the people who hold at least 5% of the company. While the company has not yet said how many shares it will sell or at what price, the whisper number on the street is that this IPO will raise a whopping $75 billion, with a post-money valuation of $1.7 trillion. At those numbers, even a 1% stake is worth $17 billion. Here’s the rundown of who owns what. Elon Musk, founder, CEO, CTO and chairman. Total SpaceX stock holdings: just over 6.42 billion shares. Antonio Gracias, investor and board member. Total SpaceX stock holdings: just over 503.4 million shares Gracias is founder and CEO and of Valor Management and a long-time Musk friend, pro-Musk board member and financier. He was on Tesla’s board from its startup days through the years after its IPO. He was also a board member of Musk’s solar company Solar City during its controversial sale to Tesla. He’s backed and held board roles for Musk’s Neuralink, including The Boring Company. He was also among the financiers that agreed to fund Musk’s failed attempted hostile takeover of OpenAI for $97 billion in early 2025. Luke Nosek, investor and board member. Total SpaceX stock holdings: nearly 33 million shares. Nosek is a co-founder of venture investment firm Gigafund, and a fellow PayPal mafia member. Nosek joined Peter Thiel at Founders Fund during its early days and led Founders first investment into Space X. He took a board seat, then, and has been on the board ever since. Gigafund also backs other Musk companies, The Boring Company and Neuralink. Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX COO. Total SpaceX stock holdings: nearly 12.6 million shares. Shotwell has been with SpaceX since 2002, and COO since since 2008. She’s the aerospace engineer genius that runs day-to-day operations. In another age, with different majority founder, someone like Shotwell would have been granted co-founder status, and likely have a bigger stake in the company. However, it’s hard to call her underpaid. For instance, in 2025, she received a large tranche of restricted stock units, bringing her total compensation to $85.8 million that year. Bret Johnsen, CFO. Total SpaceX stock holdings: nearly 9.6 million shares. Bret Johnsen has been SpaceX’s CFO since 2011. Prior to SpaceX he held CFO and financier roles in the semiconductor industry. Ira Ehrenpreis, investor and board member. Total SpaceX stock holdings: 809,050 shares. Ehrenpreis is a founder and managing member of VC firm DBL Partners. He’s been on the SpaceX board since February 2026 and is also on Tesla’s board. Randy Glein, investor, board member. Total SpaceX stock holdings: 277,800 shares. Glein is co-founder and managing partner of DFJ Growth. And around 400 other VCs. SpaceX has raised around $30 billion in private capital to date from hundreds of investors, according Pitchbook estimates. None of the others have a stake big enough to be reported, although, again, even a small percentage of the company should be worth billions at the debut. The company did, however, share the prices that these investors paid for their shares. Series A investors paid $1 per share. Series F investors paid $7.50 and the final investors, in Series N, paid $270 a share.