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.
