Former Sequoia Capital managing partner Roelof Botha is joining SpaceX\u2019s board of directors, less than a week after the company went public in the largest IPO ever.<\/p>\n
SpaceX announced<\/a> the appointment in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday. It said Botha was appointed \u201cto fill the existing vacancy on the Board\u201d and that he will serve until SpaceX\u2019s next annual shareholder meeting. He will also join the SpaceX board\u2019s audit committee. Botha didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n Botha \u201cbrings extensive public company experience along with a deep audit committee background, having served on the boards and audit committees of numerous public companies,\u201d SpaceX wrote in the filing. He stepped down from his role as Sequoia\u2019s leader late last year<\/a> as the firm was dealing with blowback against partner Shaun Maguire, who had made comments attacking then-New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.<\/p>\n The SpaceX filing also discloses that a \u201cfamily member\u201d of Botha\u2019s has worked at the company \u201csince January 2025 as a member of the enterprise operations team.\u201d SpaceX says this family member\u2019s \u201ccompensation exceeded the $120,000 reporting threshold\u201d but noted the compensation is \u201cgenerally commensurate with their peers\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Botha is on many public company boards, but none quite like SpaceX, where CEO Elon Musk enjoys near-absolute control and shareholders have little power. Musk has more than 80% of the now-public company\u2019s voting power, and owners of SpaceX stock will have severely limited opportunities<\/a> to challenge him should they disagree with his actions. Musk also has control over all changes to the board\u2019s makeup, filings show<\/a>. <\/p>\n Botha has experience with Musk, though. Musk brought Botha \u2014 who is also from South Africa \u2014 in to run the finance division of PayPal in 2000. Botha started at the payments company in March of that year, according to his LinkedIn profile. Musk was pushed out as CEO of PayPal in September 2000.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve known Elon for over 25 years,\u201d Botha told Fortune<\/a> last year in an interview during Musk\u2019s time running DOGE. \u201cHe was the first person to offer me a job in America. He believed in me when I was an unknown student at Stanford. I have a lot of appreciation and understanding that he\u2019s not perfect. None of us are. He deeply cares about doing the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n The addition of Botha brings SpaceX\u2019s board to nine directors. He joins Musk confidants Ira Ehrenpreis, Antonio Gracias, Steve Jurvetson, and Luke Nosek; SpaceX chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell; Google executive Donald Harrison; and VC Randy Glein. Musk is chairman of the board.<\/p>\n Botha has been with Sequoia for more than 20 years, and the firm invested in SpaceX in 2019. It reportedly owned<\/a> 1.5% of SpaceX heading into the IPO, giving it a position worth more than $20 billion.<\/p>\n