Elon Musk Owns 48.4% of SpaceX, a New Filing Shows. Here's Why That Matters for Everyone Else Holding the Stock.
Key Points
Elon Musk holds nearly half of SpaceX’s shares.
His voting power exceeds 80%, thanks to his super-voting Class B shares.
He will be allowed to start selling his shares next June.
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Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), held a 48.4% stake in the company as of June 30, according to a recent regulatory filing. Let's see what that massive position -- which is worth about $860 billion as of this writing -- means for its other investors.
What does Musk actually own?
Musk holds 6.42 billion shares of SpaceX. That includes 849.5 million Class A shares and 3.92 billion Class B shares held by trusts in which Musk is a trustee; 1.30 billion restricted Class B shares directly held by Musk; and 350 million Class B shares tied to stock options.
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SpaceX's Class A shares, which public investors can buy, only carry one vote per share. But its Class B shares are "super-voting" shares that carry 10 votes per share. Musk -- through his personal holdings, trusts, and options -- controls 93.6% of the outstanding Class B shares.
When combined with his Class A shares, he retains 82%-84% of SpaceX's total voting power. In other words, Musk single-handedly controls all of SpaceX's board member elections and removals, as well as all approval and veto powers over the company's major business decisions.
What does this mean for SpaceX's other investors?
Therefore, investors can expect SpaceX to stay committed to the capital-intensive expansion of its Starlink, rocket launch, and AI businesses without any public pressure. That's good news if you believe SpaceX can achieve Musk's lofty goal of becoming the first company to generate over $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2030. That would represent a 5-year CAGR of 122% from its 2025 revenue of $18.7 billion.
But that's bad news if you had expected SpaceX to exercise more restraint and financial discipline as a public company. With a market cap of $1.79 trillion, SpaceX already trades at 96 times its 2025 sales. That frothy valuation doesn't leave the company much room to disappoint its investors.
Lastly, investors should keep an eye on June 12, 2027, the day Musk's 366-day lockup period expires. But SEC Rule 144 -- which caps the volume of equity an insider can sell within three months at either 1% of a stock's outstanding shares or its average weekly trading volume -- will prevent Musk from liquidating his massive stake.
Musk will also likely set up an automated SEC Rule 10b5-1 trading schedule to sell his shares on specific dates to avoid insider trading charges. So while Musk can start selling some of his SpaceX shares next year, he'll stay in firm control of the rapidly growing company.
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Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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