Roelof Botha, longtime investor and former steward at Sequoia Capital, has joined the board of SpaceX, a submitting revealed.
The information comes lower than every week after SpaceX’s historic IPO and about seven months after Botha stepped down as Sequoia steward, the legendary enterprise capital agency’s title for its chief. His tenure coincided with a notably tough time within the VC agency’s historical past. Botha, as an investor, famously backed winners like YouTube, Instagram, Block, and MongoDB, amongst others.
Botha, who was on the quilt of Fortune in 2024, additionally has a longstanding relationship with Elon Musk—SpaceX founder, Tesla CEO, and world’s richest man by a mile. The 2 (each initially from South Africa) first labored collectively within the dotcom period when Botha served as CFO at PayPal, the place Musk was a cofounder. Botha and Musk reportedly bumped heads again then, over tradition and software program, however have continued to work collectively by means of the a long time: Sequoia is amongst SpaceX’s key enterprise backers.
Fortune spoke with Botha final 12 months in a wide-ranging interview that included him sounding off on Musk. The dialog occurred round a time with explicit public uproar round Musk’s DOGE efforts.
“I’ve identified Elon for over 25 years,” Botha mentioned on the time. “He was the primary particular person to supply me a job in America. He believed in me once I was an unknown pupil at Stanford. I’ve a number of appreciation and understanding that he’s not good. None of us are. He deeply cares about doing the fitting factor. Chances are you’ll fault a few of his actions. Perhaps there are unintended penalties. Perhaps he hasn’t thought of all of the ramifications, however the intent is pure.”
Botha declined remark for this text.
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