The decisions of the board of directors of the largest space player of our days have become available to the press. It turned out that according to them, Elon Musk should receive 200 million shares of the company if he achieves two goals, each of which is more like science fiction than reality. These data once again reinforced what Naked Science had already written about earlier: SpaceX, contrary to the theses of a number of media outlets, is still focused on colonizing Mars.
The Reuters news agency reviewed excerpts from the company's papers on its 2026 decisions. Recall that SpaceX plans to go public this year, based on an estimate of its value of 1.75 trillion dollars (at the level of GDP in France or Britain, for example). Although only a small part of the shares will be sold during the placement, this should be enough for the organization to receive more funds than all the space agencies of the world combined in 2026 (and by a large margin).
The purpose of the placement is clear: SpaceX continues to refine the largest rocket in history, and also the first fully reusable one. Starship has been conducting flight tests for three years, which are clearly not close to completion yet. However, the bulk of the company's estimated expenses will not even be on it, but on the planned deployment of orbital data centers for neural networks. According to a number of industry observers, Musk mistakenly sees this as the main market segment for SpaceX.
In order to maintain control of the company even after a series of additional share issues, Musk agreed with the board of directors on a specific plan to pay him remuneration in the form of 200 million "super voting shares." It is difficult to estimate their exact value in the future, but it should range from hundreds of billions to more than a trillion dollars. In any case, this should be the largest one-time reward in the history of mankind. He will receive it after meeting two conditions.
First, SpaceX must reach a market value of 7.5 trillion dollars. At the moment, the nominal annual GDP of only two countries in the world (China and the United States) exceeds this figure, while all other economies in the world lag behind. Theoretically, however, these figures are quite achievable, they are only four times higher than the initial cost of the company. Other organizations of Elon Musk during his management have shown much higher cost dynamics than a fourfold increase.
Secondly, the company under his leadership should create a colony on Mars with a population of one million people. This goal looks much more difficult to implement. Eric Hoffman, a market analyst, commented on this to Reuters:
"I'm not a physicist or an astronomer, so I don't even know where to start. The bar for evaluating this goal is has this been achieved in human history? No. So it's difficult to implement."
As Naked Science has already discussed in a separate article, technically the task of building a million-strong colony on Mars is achievable. But only if both stages of Starship are fully reusable, that is, the cost of space flights is drastically reduced — literally to hundreds of dollars per kilogram of payload in low-Earth orbit and below.
An additional problem in the implementation of this plan may be the fact that it will put SpaceX on a par with the leading countries of the planet in terms of required technical capabilities, economic weight, and even controlled territory. As we have already written, Musk aims to begin the process of terraforming the Red Planet. According to some modern scientific papers, it is possible to raise the temperature on Mars to the average modern terrestrial temperature in a relatively short time. But the transformation of the local atmosphere into a breathable one is a process that will inevitably take centuries.
Experts also note that this is the first time (except for Tesla earlier) when the remuneration plan of the actual head of the company is calculated based on non-financial indicators (bearing in mind the goal of the Martian colony). It also highlights how much SpaceX's influence sets it apart from the usual market players.
The attitude of Earth's governments towards Musk's goals has been extremely restrained until recently: NASA changed its radiation regulations a few years ago so that a flight to the fourth planet for its astronauts would become impossible without special permits. Musk, on the contrary, believes that no additional measures of self-defense are needed for this. The Russian political leadership and even employees of the space industry believe that a trip to Mars for humans will end in dementia or death from cancer, although, as we discussed in detail ru/article/nakedscience/mask-umret-na-puti-k-mars?utm_source=inarticle&utm_medium=inarticle&utm_campaign=inarticle " target="_blank" rel="nofollow">here, from a scientific point of view, the situation is much less clear.
It follows from this that in the coming decades (with the exception of the death of Musk), the states of the Earth will face a difficult choice. If they continue to distance themselves from mass flights to Mars, a company with which none of the state apparatus of our planet has really good relations will gain control over it. If NASA and the United States participate in Musk's Mars plans, they will be guided, and for the first time in the 21st century, a private individual will have a key influence on what is happening during a major colonization.
