A new regulatory filing shows Elon Musk owns 36.2% of SpaceX outright, not the larger figure some headlines have suggested. At Monday's closing price of $147.81, his outright stake is worth roughly $708 billion — not the $953 billion that a raw share count would imply.
Why the filing shows two numbers
The Schedule 13G Musk filed reports 6,418,547,515 shares, but only 4,766,475,230 of those are owned outright. The difference comes down to 1,302,072,285 restricted shares and 350,000,000 options that count for SEC purposes but aren't his yet.
The restricted shares vest only if SpaceX hits extreme milestones. One award requires a permanent Mars colony with at least 1 million people, plus market capitalization targets up to $7.5 trillion. A second award demands 100 terawatts of space-based data centers. As of March 31, the company recorded no compensation expense for these shares because it considers the milestones improbable.
What Musk actually holds
Musk owns 4.77 billion shares outright. He also holds 350 million options with a strike price of $8.3998, which vested in January and run to 2031. Exercising them would cost about $2.94 billion and yield stock worth roughly $52 billion at current prices.
His shares sit under a 366-day lock-up that began with SpaceX's IPO in June 2026. The earliest he can sell any of his outright stake is June 12, 2027.
Voting power vs. economic ownership
Despite owning only 36.2% outright, Musk retains 82.4% of voting power. He votes the restricted shares even before they vest, so he controls the company's direction while the financial upside stays deferred.
That gap matters for investors trying to price the stock. The $147.81 share price values Musk's outright holdings at about $708 billion. Adding the potential value of the options brings it closer to $760 billion, but the restricted shares contribute nothing until the milestones are met.
What the market is pricing
Traders on Kalshi give a 13% chance of a crewed Starship flight to Mars before 2030, though that market is thinly traded. The low probability aligns with SpaceX's own accounting, which treats the milestones as unlikely enough to skip compensation expense.
SpaceX had 13,181,779,945 shares outstanding as of July 28. Musk's 4.77 billion shares represent just over a third of that total, but his voting control is more than double his economic stake.
The earliest Musk can sell is June 12, 2027, when the lock-up expires. Whether the restricted shares ever vest depends on a Mars colony that, as of now, the company itself isn't counting on.
