{"id":711339,"date":"2026-06-18T11:24:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T11:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/711339\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T11:24:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T11:24:21","slug":"paypal-mafia-member-and-ex-sequoia-steward-roelof-botha-joins-spacex-board-reuniting-with-elon-musk-after-decades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/711339\/","title":{"rendered":"PayPal mafia member and ex\u2013Sequoia steward Roelof Botha joins SpaceX board\u2014reuniting with Elon Musk after decades"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roelof Botha, longtime investor and former steward at Sequoia Capital, has joined the board of SpaceX<\/a>, a filing revealed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The news comes less than a week after SpaceX\u2019s historic IPO<\/a> and about seven months after Botha stepped down as Sequoia steward, the legendary venture capital firm\u2019s title for its leader. His tenure coincided with a notably difficult time in the VC firm\u2019s<\/a> history. Botha, as an investor, famously backed winners like YouTube<\/a>, Instagram<\/a>, Block<\/a>, and MongoDB, among others.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Botha, who was on the cover of Fortune in 2024<\/a>, also has a long-standing relationship with Elon Musk\u2014SpaceX founder, Tesla<\/a> CEO, and world\u2019s richest man by a mile. The two (both originally from South Africa) first worked together in the dotcom era when Botha served as CFO at PayPal, where Musk was a cofounder. Botha and Musk reportedly bumped heads back then, over culture and software, but have continued to work together through the decades: Sequoia is among SpaceX\u2019s key venture backers<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At SpaceX, Botha will be an independent director, serve on the audit committee, and has no personal financial stake in the company, according to the filing.<\/p>\n

Fortune spoke with Botha last year in a wide-ranging interview that included him sounding off on Musk<\/a>. The conversation happened around a time of particular public uproar around Musk\u2019s DOGE efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve known Elon for over 25 years,\u201d Botha said at the time. \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. You may fault some of his actions. Maybe there are unintended consequences. Maybe he hasn\u2019t considered all the ramifications, but the intent is pure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Botha declined comment for this article.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to\u00a0Fortune Gulf Brief. Every Tuesday, this new newsletter delivers clear-eyed, authoritative intelligence on the deals, decisions, policies, and power shifts shaping one of the world\u2019s most consequential regions, written for the people who need to act on it. Sign up here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roelof Botha, longtime investor and former steward at Sequoia Capital, has joined the board of SpaceX, a filing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28,1513,164],"class_list":["post-711339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-spacex","tag-venture-capital"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}