Space Exploration Technologies Corp., also known as SpaceX is a private-based rocket manufacturer and transport services company. Elon Musk, one of the popular business magnates who founded Tesla, and co-founded PayPal also founded SpaceX in 2002.
The company SpaceX has made itself a brand with its innovation by developing a reusable rocket and launch system. This invention reduced the costs of space travel which is a significant revolution in the space industry.
The primary reason for SpaceX being so popular when there are other companies such as Blue Origin, Boeing, Ariane etc in the industry is its reduced costs. SpaceX manufactures rockets and gear in-house cutting the costs by around 10% and yet enjoys a 70% gross margin. Moreover, the company is free from restrictions that a normal private company bears. Hence, SpaceX is able to operate at an unusual speed in manufacturing and launching vehicles to space.
Okay, have you ever wondered who owns this most expensive private company? If yes, then stick around till the end.
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History of SpaceX
Musk founded SpaceX for space exploration and to make space travel accessible to everyone, not just trained astronauts. It is headquartered at Hawthorne, California and has over 6,400 employees as of 2019.
Elon Musk had an impossible idea (according to everybody else) of colonizing Mars. As part of his idea, he thought of starting a mission of sending a greenhouse (plant nursery) to Mars calling it Mars Oasis to find the conditions over there. Hence he tried buying rockets from Russia, but the overprices led him to travel back empty.
That is when Musk believed he could manufacture rockets and explore space for lower costs. Thus he created Space Exploration Technologies Corp., which is commonly known as SpaceX. Though initially, he thought of making it a public interest company, after calculating the expenses he kept it as a privately funded company. The reason is simple – Musk doesn’t want the company’s long-term goals to conflict with the short-term goals of shareholders. So, this is how the world’s largest private-funded spaceflight company, SpaceX is founded.
Musk created the large private-based firm and made a fortune selling two of his companies, PayPal and Zip2. He spent $100 million of his own money on SpaceX initially. The company was later funded by NASA, Alphabet and other top tech giants making it the largest privately funded company in the world. In fact, the SpaceX business model contributed to the success of the company as it also commercialized its reusable rockets and started new missions to make space travel and exploration practical.
It manufactured and launched Falcon 1, Falcon 9 rockets and Falcon Heavy spacecraft to carry cargo to space. These vehicles are being used by both commercial and military missions. These reusable rockets cost $62 million to $90 million per launch and cost up to an extra $20 million for complicated missions.
Who Owns SpaceX?
Okay, now let’s see who owns SpaceX now…
Though SpaceX is a privately funded company, Musk, the founder and CEO of the company holds the majority of shares. He owns 54% of SpaceX and has 78% of shares acquiring the voting rights.
Musk is a serial entrepreneur who is popularly known for founding Tesla, SpaceX and co-founding PayPal. Like Tesla, PayPal and his other companies, everybody thought Musk would take SpaceX to public offerings with his popularity. But, that didn’t happen because the staff of the company doesn’t want their long-term goals to get disturbed. However, they would likely bring the company to the public after it initiates the regular flights to Mars.
The other shareholders of SpaceX are Legendary Ventures, Meyer Equity, NASA, Manhattan Venture Partners, Vanedge Capital, Gigafund etc.
Other Companies Owned by Elon Musk
- X.com – an online bank
- Tesla – electric cars and battery products, solar roofs manufacturer
- The Boring Company – devoted to reducing street traffic by boring and building tunnels
- AI and Neuralink – an AI-related company working towards implanting devices in the human brain to merge with software.
- Musk Foundation – a non-profit organization dedicated to space exploration and discovery of usable and clean energy sources.
A Few Highlights of SpaceX
- SpaceX is the only first private spaceflight company to send satellites to the International Space Station in low earth orbit.
- SpaceX will not go public until it flies to Mars regularly. Thus, the IPO for SpaceX is as far as its Mars landing.
- It started an incredible project called Starlink to provide high-speed internet to people in the world for normal costs.
- Although, Musk is interested in taking Starlink into public by the end of 2020.
- It is the only rocket manufacturing and space transportation company to launch the spacecraft with a crew (it sent two NASA astronauts to space safely on 30 May 2020).
- SpaceX had launched Falcon Heavy spacecraft into space in 2008 with an electric car made by Tesla. The spacecraft carried the Tesla Roadster car, a space suited mannequin (named Starman) to space.
Bottom Line
Thus, the South-African billionaire, Elon Musk owns SpaceX holding 54% of the company owning 78% of the company’s shares. SpaceX is one of the most valuable private-based companies on the planet. In fact, it is a key player in the space industry as it has contributed a lot to the industry and owns the largest global market share.
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