Roelof Botha joins SpaceX’s board of directors

Former Sequoia Capital managing associate Roelof Botha is becoming a member of SpaceX’s board of administrators, lower than every week after the corporate went public within the largest IPO ever.

SpaceX introduced the appointment in a submitting with the Securities and Change Fee on Wednesday. It stated Botha was appointed “to fill the prevailing emptiness on the Board” and that he’ll serve till SpaceX’s subsequent annual shareholder assembly. He can even be part of the SpaceX board’s audit committee. Botha didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

Botha “brings in depth public firm expertise together with a deep audit committee background, having served on the boards and audit committees of quite a few public corporations,” SpaceX wrote within the submitting. He stepped down from his position as Sequoia’s chief late final yr because the agency was coping with blowback in opposition to associate Shaun Maguire, who had made feedback attacking then-New York Metropolis mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.

The SpaceX submitting additionally discloses {that a} “member of the family” of Botha’s has labored on the firm “since January 2025 as a member of the enterprise operations group.” SpaceX says this member of the family’s “compensation exceeded the $120,000 reporting threshold” however famous the compensation is “usually commensurate with their friends’.”

Botha is on many public firm boards, however none fairly like SpaceX, the place CEO Elon Musk enjoys near-absolute management and shareholders have little energy. Musk has greater than 80% of the now-public firm’s voting energy, and homeowners of SpaceX inventory could have severely restricted alternatives to problem him ought to they disagree together with his actions. Musk additionally has management over all adjustments to the board’s make-up, filings present.

Botha has expertise with Musk, although. Musk introduced Botha — who can also be from South Africa — in to run the finance division of PayPal in 2000. Botha began on the funds firm in March of that yr, in accordance with his LinkedIn profile. Musk was pushed out as CEO of PayPal in September 2000.

“I’ve identified Elon for over 25 years,” Botha informed Fortune final yr in an interview throughout Musk’s time operating DOGE. “He was the primary particular person to supply me a job in America. He believed in me after I was an unknown scholar at Stanford. I’ve loads of appreciation and understanding that he’s not excellent. None of us are. He deeply cares about doing the best factor.”

The addition of Botha brings SpaceX’s board to 9 administrators. He joins Musk confidants Ira Ehrenpreis, Antonio Gracias, Steve Jurvetson, and Luke Nosek; SpaceX chief working officer Gwynne Shotwell; Google govt Donald Harrison; and VC Randy Glein. Musk is chairman of the board.

Botha has been with Sequoia for greater than 20 years, and the agency invested in SpaceX in 2019. It reportedly owned 1.5% of SpaceX heading into the IPO, giving it a place value greater than $20 billion.