SpaceX is expected to make its debut on public markets at a valuation of $1.75 trillion on June 12, 2026. When it does, Elon Musk will almost certainly become the world’s first trillionaire. But he won’t be the only one cashing in spectacularly. Sitting just behind Musk on the shareholder ledger is a name most people outside Wall Street have never heard, Antonio Gracias.
Born to an Indian origin father, Gracias, the 55-year-old founder and CEO of Chicago-based private equity firm Valor Equity Partners, holds 7.3% of SpaceX’s Class A 503 million share. This makes him the second-largest individual shareholder in the company after Musk himself. At the $1.75 trillion valuation that Bloomberg and Reuters have reported SpaceX is targeting, that stake would be worth roughly $90 billion. If the company hits $2 trillion, it climbs past $140 billion. Either way, the IPO will vault him into the ranks of the wealthiest people alive.
It is an astonishing outcome for a man whose current holdings in SpaceX are valued at $5.9 billion. And it is, in every meaningful sense, the payoff for a friendship that started with a $1 million bet on a nearly bankrupt electric car company.
What his SpaceX stake could actually be worth
Gracias, through various Valor Equity Partners funds, controls a 4% economic stake in SpaceX, the second-largest disclosed position after Musk himself. The journey to that position began in 2008, when Valor put in over $76 million in one of the earliest institutional bets on commercial spaceflight, at a time when the idea of a private rocket company reaching orbit was still treated with considerable scepticism.
Gracias crossed paths with Elon Musk at the turn of the century, through the interconnected webs of Silicon Valley and the PayPal alumni network, Gracias was already building a track record as a disciplined, hands-on investor.
Valor Equity Partners became one of Tesla’s earliest institutional investors in 2005. Gracias joined Tesla’s board in 2007, and later served as its lead independent director for eight years. He started investing in SpaceX around 2008.
The $1 million loan that started it all
The bond between the two men is often traced back to a single act of faith. In Tesla’s earliest, most precarious days, when the company was, in the words of those who knew it then, teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, Gracias lent Musk $1 million to keep the enterprise alive.
That bet has compounded in extraordinary ways. Gracias has since sat on the boards of Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity, Neuralink, and The Boring Company. His firm has put money into nearly every company Musk has touched. And Musk returned the favour early on investing $2 million each into Valor’s first and second funds, lending the firm credibility it leveraged into a portfolio that today spans some of the most consequential technology companies in the world, including Reddit, Anduril Industries, and Zipline.
The two men were roughly the same age, shared an almost compulsive work ethic, and quickly found in each other something rarer than capital: trust.
Gracias has acknowledged in court proceedings that he amassed what he described as “dynastic or generational wealth” from investing in Musk’s companies. Those who have worked alongside him describe someone relentlessly focused, always on, and almost pathologically hardworking. “Antonio is surely the most wildly successful, impactful investor who nobody knows,” Keller Rinaudo Cliffton, CEO of delivery drone maker Zipline, once said to Fortune.
Sleeping in conference rooms during Tesla’s darkest hour
The depth of Gracias’s involvement in Musk’s world is not merely financial. As reported by Fortune, in the summer of 2018, when Tesla was struggling to ramp up production of the Model 3, Gracias embedded himself on the factory floor alongside Musk. The two worked nearly around the clock, sleeping in adjacent conference rooms. Gracias later described it as an “all hands on deck, 24/7” operation, the hardest thing he had ever done. They rarely left the premises, at one point celebrating Musk’s 47th birthday with a cake from the grocery store next door because, as Gracias recalled, they couldn’t step away long enough for a proper party.
The friendship extends well beyond boardrooms and factory floors. The two families have gone on multiple holidays together, including a trip to magician David Copperfield’s private island in the Bahamas. They have spent Christmas and other holidays together over the years. Gracias was a groomsman at the wedding of Musk’s brother Kimbal. Gracias also spent time at the White House with Musk during his DOGE days.
The $20 billion deal that raised eyebrows
Gracias’s financial entanglement with the Musk universe goes far deeper than just holding SpaceX shares. SpaceX’s S-1 filing reveals that his firm, Valor, signed three equipment lease agreements with CTC, a subsidiary of xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence company, which SpaceX absorbed in February 2026 for AI infrastructure hardware, specifically the GPUs powering xAI’s data centres. The first agreement was signed in October, the second in January, and a third in April. Together, the three agreements obligate SpaceX to pay Valor close to $20 billion over their terms, with SpaceX itself guaranteeing the payments.
The structure has drawn scrutiny. Corporate governance experts flagged the arrangement almost immediately. As reported by Bloomberg, Nell Minow, chair of ValueEdge Advisors, described the deals as “deeply troubling.” SpaceX’s own auditor, PwC, refused to classify the transactions as ordinary leases. Instead, PwC called them “failed sale leasebacks,” a technical designation meaning that xAI never truly transferred control of the GPUs to Valor, making Valor effectively a lender with the hardware as collateral rather than a genuine purchaser. PwC forced SpaceX to record the $9 billion in obligations on its balance sheet as related-party debt payable to the firm of one of SpaceX’s own sitting directors.
Valor entities have already collected roughly $885 million from the leases in 2025, and another $857 million in just the first two months of 2026. Once SpaceX goes public, the liability transfers to public shareholders, who will inherit billions in obligations from deals struck while the company was still private.
Antonio Gracias’ contributions beyond SpaceX
Before founding Valor in 2001, Gracias established MG Capital, a Chicago-based private equity firm where he led investment transactions for five years. Earlier in his career, he worked at Goldman Sachs in New York, advising institutional clients within the firm’s International Equity Division.
Gracias boardroom experience extends well beyond Musk-led companies. Over the years, Gracias has served as a director of several public and private businesses, including Harmony Biosciences, Marathon Pharmaceuticals, and SolarCity, gaining experience across industries ranging from healthcare and biotechnology to renewable energy.
Academically, Gracias earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in International Finance and Economics from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, before obtaining a law degree from the University of Chicago Law School.
What happens after the IPO
Even as SpaceX opens its ownership to public investors, the board structure ensures that key insiders, including Musk, Shotwell, and Gracias retain significant influence over the company’s strategic direction. Following the IPO, Antonio Gracias is expected to continue serving as a Class B Director and will also sit on the Compensation and Nominating Committee alongside Ira Ehrenpreis and Luke Nosek.
From Goa to Michigan
Gracias was born in Detroit, Michigan, to immigrant parents with father’s roots in Goa. He studied international economics and foreign service at Georgetown University, spent time in Japan at Waseda University, and worked at Nikko Securities in Tokyo before returning to the United States to earn his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1998.
While still in law school in 1995, he founded MG Capital, an investment firm that would eventually become Valor Equity Partners.
Musk commands global attention with each post and launch, Gracias has operated in the background on boards, in conference rooms, in the desert at 4am accumulating stakes and influence that are only now coming into full view.
His philanthropic footprint is equally wide. In 2015, Barack Obama named him a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship. He donated $500,000 to Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign and $1 million to Musk’s America PAC supporting Trump’s 2024 re-election. Through the Gracias Family Foundation, he gave $5 million to Georgetown University in 2022 to fund scholarships for students affected by the war in Ukraine. He serves on the boards of the Aspen Institute, the University of Chicago, and Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service.
Today, Valor Equity Partners manages more than $55 billion in assets. Its portfolio stretches from SpaceX and Neuralink to Reddit and Anduril. Handling this all is a 55-year-old son of Goan immigrants from Detroit, who once lent a struggling entrepreneur a million dollars and never looked back.