by Mostofa Sarwar
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SpaceX shares come in two main types: Class A and Class B (although the company has the option to issue nonvoting Class C shares in the future). The Class A shares are the ones being offered for sale to the public in the IPO, and are subject to the usual "one vote per share" rule for voting on company matters. But the Class B shares, which ordinary investors can't buy, confer 10 votes per share, and Elon Musk owns 93.6% of those Class B shares. That gives Musk 85.1% of the combined voting power of the company. Generally speaking, it's good for a CEO to be a major shareholder of their company, because it means their goals are aligned with those of other shareholders. But when a CEO controls a supermajority of the entire company's voting power, their vote is the only shareholder vote that matters. All other shareholders are basically just along for the ride. —Yahoo Finance, June 5, 2026
See also “Elon Musk, Human Ponzi Scheme” by Paul Krugman.
The Class B shares are held
by a singular phantom,
ten votes for every dead soul
trapped in the machinery.
Down in the valley,
the river still runs cold and silver,
unbothered by the governance of the super-voting elite.
We bought into the future
at an inflated premium,
only to find ourselves locked
in a Class C silence,
watching the billionaire steer his iron chariot toward Mars
with the capital drained
from our pension pots
and collective dreams.
The fireflies still blink in the hedgerows—
a fragile, democratic light
that requires no underwriters.
Dr. Mostofa Sarwar is a professor emeritus of geophysics and former associate provost at the University of New Orleans, as well as the dean and former vice chancellor and provost of Delgado Community College. His opinion essays were published in The Daily Star, New Age, Dhaka Tribune, and Bdnews24.com of Bangladesh, The Straits Times of Singapore, The Statesman of India, Phuket News of Thailand, The Times Picayune of New Orleans, The Advocate of Baton Rouge, The Acadiana Advocate of Lafayette, The Daily Advent and The Opera News of New York. Recently, his English poetry has appeared in the Sangam literary magazine, The Seattle Star, The New Verse News, Ellipsis, and other publications, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Sarwar published three books of Bengali poems. His book His book Sunflower Wounds, a collection of English poems about the war in Ukraine, has been accepted for publication by the University of New Orleans Press.