Botha “brings extensive public company experience along with a deep audit committee background, having served on the boards and audit committees of numerous public companies,” SpaceX wrote in the filing. He stepped down from his role as Sequoia’s leader late last year as the firm was dealing with blowback against partner Shaun Maguire, who had made comments attacking then-New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.

The SpaceX filing also discloses that a “family member” of Botha’s has worked at the company “since January 2025 as a member of the enterprise operations team.” SpaceX says this family member’s “compensation exceeded the $120,000 reporting threshold” but noted the compensation is “generally commensurate with their peers’.”

Botha is on many public company boards, but none quite like SpaceX, where CEO Elon Musk enjoys near-absolute control and shareholders have little power. Musk has more than 80% of the now-public company’s voting power, and owners of SpaceX stock will have severely limited opportunities to challenge him should they disagree with his actions. Musk also has control over all changes to the board’s makeup, filings show.

Botha has experience with Musk, though. Musk brought Botha — who is also from South Africa — in to run the finance division of PayPal in 2000. Botha started at the payments company in March of that year, according to his LinkedIn profile. Musk was pushed out as CEO of PayPal in September 2000.