From Side Hustle to Wide Hustle: SpaceX IPO

WSJ wrote about Elon Musk's doling out access to SpaceX stock to friends in April 2025.  Space Exploration Technologies (dba SpaceX) has a scheduled IPO launch for June 12, 2026.   

An expert in corporate governance gave a warning on CNBC.  The guest noted lease agreements between SpaceX and Valor Equity Partners as Valor founder & CEO Antonio Gracias is on SpaceX's board of directors.

Rules and norms do not apply to TechGods.  These super-humans can hold multiple full time jobs. Just a dash of their time is incalculable in terms of value.  That power extends beyond the C-suite to the ballot box.

Shareholders normally get a vote.  One share, one vote.  The S-1 indicates SpaceX has several classes of stock, Class A, Class B and Class C.  Musk owns 93% of Class B shares with each share having ten votes.  Class A has one vote per share while Class C has no voting rights.  

Class B shareholders (i.e. Elon Musk) select 51% of the board, while Class A together with Class B select the other 49% (once again Elon Musk).  

The filing states:

...we will be a “controlled company” within the meaning of Nasdaq and Nasdaq Texas corporate governance standards. Under the listing rules of Nasdaq and Nasdaq Texas, a company of which more than 50% of the voting power with respect to director elections is held by another person or group of persons acting together is a “controlled company” and may elect not to comply with certain Nasdaq and Nasdaq Texas corporate governance requirements

This harkens back to when The Carlyle Group, a politically connected private equity underwriter (PEU) went public, but the three founders controlled the board makeup with their outsized share holdings.

Two SpaceX shareholders got special mention in their Investor Rights Amendment (filed in 2020). 

Antonio Gracias may be familiar to close watchers of DOGE.  He "helped" Elon Musk with Social Security from March to July of 2025.  

CEO Antonio Gracias had resigned from his position working 80 hours a week for the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. A Valor spokesperson stated that Gracias was no longer freelancing for the U.S. government.

Gracias also sits on the Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago.  The Chicago Maroon reported on his DOGE involvement:

In meetings with senior staff, SSA Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek has referred to Gracias and other DOGE staffers as “outsiders who are unfamiliar with nuances of SSA programs,” per a March 6 Washington Post article. 

Despite DOGE staffers’ lack of experience, “I am receiving decisions that are made without my input. I have to effectuate those decisions,” Dudek told senior SSA staff.

Gracias spoke alongside Musk at a Social Security Townhall in March.  Their claims did not hold up under scrutiny.  Vanity Fair excoriated the effort:

....didn’t just use untruths to justify their work at the Social Security Administration. They also used their own inability to analyze data, as well as massive hubris...

The second SpaceX shareholder receiving special mention is Peter Thiel's Founders Fund.

It's not clear how much Elon Musk, Peter Thiel or Antonio Gracias will make in the SpaceX IPO, but one thing is for sure.  TechGods remain firmly in control.