{"id":49702,"date":"2026-04-29T19:35:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T19:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/49702\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T19:35:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T19:35:10","slug":"elon-musk-learned-one-crucial-trick-from-zuckerberg-ahead-of-his-spacex-ipo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/49702\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk Learned One Crucial Trick From Zuckerberg Ahead of His SpaceX IPO"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you thought SpaceX going public would open Elon Musk to potential ouster by shareholders, think again. According to an excerpt of its IPO filing reviewed by Reuters<\/a>, prospective investors who want to get in on the impending SpaceX initial public offering have been informed that Musk cannot be removed from his roles as CEO and chairman without his consent. Sure would be nice if the rest of us had that clause, huh?<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s king status at the head of the company is the result of some finagling within SpaceX\u2019s filings. Per Reuters, the company\u2019s documents state that Musk \u201ccan only be removed from our board or these positions by the vote of Class B holders.\u201d Those are shares that have ten votes apiece, and they\u2019re reportedly currently controlled by Musk.<\/p>\n

That power comes in addition to SpaceX\u2019s planned dual-class framework, which most tech firms choose to allow their founders to maintain more control of the company, but that model does leave the head of the company vulnerable still, because the board can remove them. Musk\u2019s Class B monopoly insulates him from that outcome. Per Reuters, the filing states that if Musk \u201cretains a significant \u200bportion of his holdings of Class B common stock for an extended period of time, he \u2060could continue to control the election and removal of a majority of our board.\u201d<\/p>\n

That reportedly gives Musk what would amount to veto power over any attempt to remove him. It\u2019s the corporate equivalent of the \u201cIsn\u2019t there somebody you forgot to ask?\u201d meme<\/a>. The structure would give Musk such protection that SpaceX (and xAI and X) is warning investors that they shouldn\u2019t count on having much control over the company. According to Reuters, they are being told Musk\u2019s grip on the reins \u201cwill limit or preclude \u200cyour ability \u2060to influence corporate matters and the election of our directors.\u201d<\/p>\n

As with most things Musk, he didn\u2019t really invent this strategy, even if he takes credit for it. Mark Zuckerberg pioneered a similar strategy to maintain his control over Facebook and became the envy of Silicon Valley. Zuck holds as much as 90% of the company\u2019s Class B shares<\/a>\u2014the ones with 10 times the voting power as the average shareholder. That control has allowed Zuckerberg to weather storms at Meta that another CEO might have had to answer to\u2014like, say, burning about $80 billion<\/a> pursuing a doomed-to-fail virtual reality project.<\/p>\n

Given Musk\u2019s volatility as a person, it\u2019s not hard to imagine why a board might want to pull the eject lever and get a normal person\u2014ideally one without any social media presence\u2014in the seat. But to Musk\u2019s credit, he\u2019s smart enough to ensure that getting rid of him won\u2019t ever be that easy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you thought SpaceX going public would open Elon Musk to potential ouster by shareholders, think again. According…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154],"tags":[202,3191,618,207,4023],"class_list":{"0":"post-49702","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mark-zuckerberg","8":"tag-elon-musk","9":"tag-ipo","10":"tag-mark-zuckerberg","11":"tag-spacex","12":"tag-xai"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116489677838112544","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}