Elon Musk is telling would-be SpaceX investors to brace for a bumpy ride while also putting in place a corporate structure that could make it unusually hard for ordinary shareholders to challenge his power after the company's expected initial public offering, or IPO.
New details have surfaced about how SpaceX intends to govern itself once it goes public. According to a Reuters report on the IPO filing, SpaceX plans to adopt a dual-class stock structure that gives certain shares far more power than others.
This structure means that Elon Musk would be the only person with enough power to fire Elon Musk. SpaceX is trying to go public as soon as June 12, in what could be the largest IPO ever, per the Wall Street Journal. It also has the potential to help Musk become the world's first trillionaire.
The IPO filing contained the specifics that made Musk's power explicit. Per Reuters, Musk "can only be removed from our board or these positions by the vote of Class B holders," but if Musk "retains a significant portion of his holdings of Class B common stock for an extended period of time, he could continue to control the election and removal of a majority of our board."
In a May 15 post on X, responding to a Financial Times article outlining these details, Musk told future SpaceX shareholders, "Yes, I need to make sure SpaceX stays focused on making life multiplanetary and extending consciousness to the stars, not pandering to someone's BS quarterly earnings bonus."
Yes, I need to make sure SpaceX stays focused on making life multiplanetary and extending consciousness to the stars, not pandering to someone's bullshit quarterly earnings bonus!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 15, 2026
Obviously, IF SpaceX succeeds in this absurdly difficult goal, it will be worth many orders of…
He then added, "If SpaceX succeeds in this absurdly difficult goal, it will be worth many orders of magnitude more than the economy of Earth, but don't expect entirely smooth sailing along the way."
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The X exchange was summarized by a humorous insight in Gizmodo, with Mike Pearl writing, "He often does this. In response to criticism … he would say some variation on if people are mean to me, humanity will never be multiplanetary."
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