A former SpaceX engineer plans to gradually sell shares now worth about $23 million after the rocket and satellite company’s June stock market listing significantly increased the value of equity held by longtime employees. Andre Lavoie joined SpaceX in 2009 and received 200,000 shares as part of his compensation while designing pressure tanks for its rockets.
Lavoie, 63, told the BBC he intends to sell portions of his holding whenever he gets the opportunity rather than trying to predict where the share price will go. SpaceX shares are being released from restrictions in stages, with the first batch becoming available on August 6 and further releases scheduled through the rest of the year.
Lavoie is among thousands of employees whose holdings increased sharply in value following the IPO. Elon Musk told Fox News that the listing had probably made “several thousand” employees millionaires, including some production-line workers, while reports estimate about 4,400 new millionaires were created.
SpaceX Went Public in a Record IPO
SpaceX began trading on Nasdaq under the SPCX ticker on June 12 after pricing shares at $135 each, according to the company’s official IPO announcement. The company later said its offering raised about $85.7 billion after underwriters fully exercised their option for additional shares.
The listing valued SpaceX at more than $2 trillion and briefly pushed Musk’s personal fortune above $1 trillion before the share price declined. Shares later fell below the $135 IPO price, including a 13.6% decline to $108.27 following the company’s first earnings report as a public company.
SpaceX has since recovered some of those losses. The stock was trading around its IPO price again by August 10 following increased liquidity after the first insider-share restrictions expired.
Revenue Nearly Doubled as Spending Increased
SpaceX reported quarterly revenue of $7.8 billion, up 92% from $4.1 billion a year earlier, in its second-quarter results. The company reported a net loss of $541 million for the quarter, compared with a $1 billion loss a year earlier, and adjusted EBITDA of $3.5 billion.
Those official figures differ from the figures cited in the supplied BBC report, which stated that SpaceX lost $143 million during the quarter and $2 billion during the first half of the year. SpaceX’s own earnings release lists the quarterly net loss as $541 million.
Musk defended the company’s spending and said investors were underestimating Starlink, its satellite internet business. He said Starlink could eventually provide a majority of global internet connectivity, while some investors have focused on SpaceX’s substantial spending on AI-related projects.
Lavoie Plans to Fund Projects in Italy
Lavoie plans to use proceeds from selling some of his shares to renovate a hotel in Pontebba, in Italy’s Friuli region, and to fund a small brewery. He also wants to work with a local environmental group to raise awareness of air pollution in the area.
He said Musk personally interviewed him before he joined SpaceX and described his former colleagues positively, while declining to discuss Musk’s politics. Lavoie said he remains confident in SpaceX’s business even as he begins reducing his personal stake.
Featured image credits: Wikimedia Commons
For more stories like it, click the +Follow button at the top of this page to follow us.