Everyone knows Elon Musk is the genius behind the biggest stock market debut of all time. But even a genius, in the immortal words of Jim Collins, needs a thousand helpers. So who, exactly, is helping him run SpaceX?
The company Musk founded in an El Segundo, Calif. warehouse in 2002 is not quite the company it was even 18 months ago. In February 2026, Musk folded his artificial intelligence startup xAI into SpaceX in an all-stock deal. The deal created a $1.25 trillion private behemoth—part rocket company, part satellite constellation, part AI firm—before handing shares of it to the public.
Several of the executives who built SpaceX’s launch business now formally oversee xAI’s operations, too. A longtime general counsel retired without a named successor. And a new board, assembled just months before the IPO, includes two fresh faces elevated to satisfy the governance expectations of public market investors.
The result is an organization that is more complex, more sprawling, and more deeply “Musk” than ever. Below is an updated guide to the power players running SpaceX and the changes that quietly reshaped SpaceX’s leadership in the months leading up to the biggest market debut the world has ever seen.
