Former Sequoia Capital managing partner Roelof Botha joined SpaceX's board less than a week after the company went public in the largest IPO in history.
SpaceX announced the appointment Wednesday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The newspaper said Botha was appointed “to fill an existing vacancy on the board of directors” and will serve until SpaceX's next annual general meeting. He will also join the Audit Committee of the SpaceX Board of Directors. Botha did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Botha “brings extensive public company experience, along with a deep background on audit committees, having served on the boards and audit committees of numerous public companies,” SpaceX said in the filing. He stepped down from his role as Sequoia's leader late last year as the company grappled with backlash against partner Sean Maguire, who made comments attacking then-New York City mayoral candidate Zoran Mamdani.
The SpaceX filing also reveals that Mr. Botha's “family members” have worked for the company “as members of the enterprise operations team since January 2025.” SpaceX said the family's “compensation exceeded the reporting threshold of $120,000,” but said their compensation was “approximately equal to that of their peers.”
Mr. Botha serves on the boards of many public companies, but none like SpaceX, where CEO Elon Musk has near-absolute control and shareholders have little power. Musk owns more than 80% of the company's publicly traded voting power, severely limiting SpaceX stockholders' opportunities to challenge him if they disagree with his actions. Musk also has the authority to control any changes to the composition of the board of directors, according to the filing.
But Botha has experience with Musk. In 2000, Mr. Musk hired Mr. Botha, also from South Africa, to head PayPal's finance department. Botha joined the payments company in March of that year, according to his LinkedIn profile. Musk was ousted as CEO of PayPal in September 2000.
“I've known Elon for over 25 years,” Botha told Fortune magazine in an interview last year when Musk was running DOGE. “He was the first person to offer me a job in America. He believed in me when I was an unknown student at Stanford University. I greatly appreciate and understand that he is not perfect. None of us are perfect. He cares deeply about doing the right thing.”
With the addition of Botha, SpaceX's board of directors now has nine members. He joins Musk's confidants Ira Ehrenpreis, Antonio Gracias, Steve Jurvetson and Luke Nosek. Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX Chief Operating Officer. Google executive Donald Harrison. and VC Randy Grain. Mr. Musk is the Chairman of the Board.
Botha has worked with Sequoia for more than 20 years, and the company invested in SpaceX in 2019. Botha reportedly owns 1.5% of SpaceX heading into the IPO, a position worth more than $20 billion.
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