After Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX for short, went public in June 2026, Elon Musk’s financial status vaulted from multibillionaire to trillionaire — the world’s first trillionaire ever.
Musk founded SpaceX in 2002, and the company was initially widely dismissed for moving into an aerospace industry already dominated by defense contractors such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Over the years, SpaceX’s successes included landing a contract with NASA in 2008 and leading innovation in the field with vertical landings of its rocket boosters in 2015. Now, Musk has his eyes set on space exploration and human colonization of Mars.
Here’s a closer look at how many shares Musk owns in SpaceX, what his stake is worth, and how he accumulated so much stock in the company.
How much of SpaceX does Elon Musk own?
Elon Musk owned 6.4 billion shares, equating to about 48.4% of the company, according to an August 2026 filing with the SEC. Those shares — which came from both Class A and Class B common stock — were valued at $872 billion, as of early November 2026.
Of Musk’s SpaceX holdings, at least 3.9 billion are Class B super-voting shares. These shares carry 10 times the voting power of ordinary shares, giving Musk over 80% of the company’s voting power.
Still, of the 6.4 billion shares, there were 1.3 billion shares of restricted Class B common stock.
Is Elon Musk the largest individual shareholder of SpaceX?
Elon Musk is the largest individual shareholder of SpaceX, and he controls almost half of the company’s outstanding shares. Institutional investors are the next biggest holders of SpaceX stock.
Related: How much TSLA stock does Tesla CEO Elon Musk actually own?
SpaceX’s largest institutional shareholders
Institutional firms hold 45.4% of SpaceX’s outstanding shares, according to Nasdaq. Alphabet, which controls Google, invested in SpaceX with Fidelity before the company’s IPO in 2026. Alphabet owned 551.1 million shares as of early November 2026, and that 6.8% stake was valued at about $69 billion.
Rounding out the top three, Valor Management owned 503.4 million shares, and FMR, the parent holding company of Fidelity Investments, owned 302.5 million shares.
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How and when did Elon Musk accumulate his SpaceX stock?
Following the sale of his stake in PayPal to eBay in 2002, Musk turned toward other investment opportunities. That same year, he founded SpaceX and reportedly invested $100 million in initial capital and granted equity and stock options to key employees for their roles in helping “launch” the business.
Over the years, new shares were issued, diluting Musk’s stake in SpaceX. Following the June 2026 IPO, SEC data showed that Musk held a 48.4% stake in SpaceX.
How much SpaceX stock does Elon Musk get as part of his compensation package?
As part of a 2026 compensation package, Musk would receive additional SpaceX shares in the hundreds of millions for achieving certain milestones, such as a market capitalization of $7.5 trillion and a permanent Mars settlement with at least one million residents.
He may also earn up to 60.4 million restricted shares if the company meets other financial and operational goals, including launching space-based data centers with 100 terawatts or more of compute capacity.
These are incredibly lofty targets, so it’s unlikely they will be met any time in the near future.
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