SpaceX’s latest S-1 filing puts a number on one of Elon Musk’s oldest business alliances: Antonio Gracias owns more than 500 million shares of SpaceX stock through investment firms tied to Valor Equity Partners. At the $1.5 trillion valuation the company is seeking, that stake would be worth about $91.6 billion.
The filing shows those holdings amount to roughly 7.3% of SpaceX’s Class A stock before the IPO, an unusually large position for a longtime Musk confidant who has mostly stayed out of the spotlight. Gracias founded Valor Equity Partners in 1995 and built it into one of the earliest major institutional investors in SpaceX, giving him a place near the center of Musk’s private financial world.
Gracias and Musk met through Silicon Valley and PayPal circles in the early 2000s after Musk sold PayPal to eBay, and their relationship deepened across more than two decades of dealmaking and damage control. During Tesla’s financial crises in the late 2000s, and again during the Model 3 production ramp, Gracias was one of Musk’s strongest defenders inside Tesla’s boardroom, a role that helped cement his status as one of Musk’s most trusted confidants.
The filing also points to another lucrative link between Musk’s companies and the Valor orbit. It says subsidiaries tied to xAI entered into nearly $20 billion in equipment lease agreements with Valor-affiliated entities, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in payments to those entities during 2025 and early 2026. That detail adds another layer to a business relationship that has long blended backing, loyalty and access.
The disclosure also lays out how concentrated SpaceX ownership remains among Musk’s inner circle. Luke Nosek owns nearly 33 million shares through direct holdings and Nosek Capital, which would be worth about $6 billion at the same valuation, while Gwynne Shotwell holds 12.6 million shares worth roughly $2.3 billion. Together with Gracias, they underscore how much of the company’s paper wealth sits with people who have been with Musk through the hardest stretches of his career.
For investors and employees watching the filing, the takeaway is straightforward: SpaceX’s road to the public market is not just a financing event. It is a public accounting of how Musk’s closest allies, from Gracias to Shotwell, have accumulated enormous stakes while staying close enough to help steer the company through turmoil. The filing makes that concentration unmistakable, and it puts Antonio Gracias at the center of one of the richest private-company ownership stories ever disclosed.
