Jun 5, 2026
He was present at the moment SpaceX nearly imploded. Now, private equity investor Antonio Gracias will pocket $68 billion from his sizable bet on Elon Musk’s marquee company.
On June 12, SpaceX set a $135 share price for its initial public offering that valued the company at $1.77 trillion and crystallized it as the biggest IPO in stock market history. Musk maintained control of the company after the IPO.
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SpaceX’s business is built on rockets and satellites frequently launched into space, and the company is involved in supplying the lunar equipment for astronauts to return to the moon sometime in 2028. SpaceX also owns the artificial intelligence start-up xAI and Starlink, the satellite internet service.
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All the while, Gracias’s allegiance to Musk has been a wildly profitable one. The pair are close friends, having spent Christmases together and taking joint vacations in Hawaii and Wyoming, The Wall Street Journal reported.
“I have worked closely with Elon for over 20 years,” Gracias wrote in January 2025 on X. “His heart is pure, and his sole mission is to help humanity.”
The $1 million loan
Gracias founded Valor Equity Partners in 1995, which now manages $17.5 billion in assets. A longtime Musk ally, he extended a $1 million personal loan to Musk’s SpaceX when the company struggled financially in 2008. He joined the board that year and remains a SpaceX executive.
Gracias’s investment portfolio is heavy on Musk-related companies. Valor controls a 6.7% stake in SpaceX, the second-largest stake after Musk himself. Through Valor, Gracias has also invested into Tesla, Solar City, the Boring Company and Neuralink in moves that helped Musk cement his expansive business empire.
Gracias’s SpaceX holdings, though, may be his most valuable stake. The Wall Street Journal reported that Gracias and Valor’s SpaceX holdings are worth roughly $68 billion. Gracias, who now has a net worth of $24.4 billion — is now one of the world’s richest men due to his numerous investments into Musk’s constellation of companies.
He was also an early institutional investor in Tesla, joining the automaker’s board in 2008 through 2021. He engineered cost-saving initiatives, such as deploying Tesla salespeople to carry out test-drives for its vehicles at public events rather than building out a fleet of showrooms. He left after a corporate shakeup that slashed the number of board seats.
Musk credited Gracias with rescuing Tesla when production costs for the company’s first car swelled past budget projections early on in its existence.
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“I don’t think we would have made it without his help,” Musk said of Gracias in a 2012 speech at the Economic Club of Chicago.
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Gracias’s DOGE stint
Gracias’s loyalty to Musk went beyond the private sector.
Last year, he followed Musk into the Trump administration as the SpaceX founder was setting up the Department of Government Efficiency in an effort to sharply reduce public-sector ranks. Gracias joined DOGE as a volunteer to comb through Social Security Administration records searching for evidence of widespread voter fraud.
He never found it, and Gracias’s stint in government was short-lived. DOGE’s existence was marred by chaotic firings in government agencies, court battles and failed spectacularly to achieve its $1 trillion cost-cutting goal. Gracias exited DOGE in July 2025, NBC News reported.
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Joseph Zeballos-Roig is a policy and politics journalist based in Washington D.C with a focus on economics. He is experienced in connecting the significance of events in the capital to the lives of everyday Americans whether its taxes, tariffs, interest rates or federal programs.
