What is a capital structure?
A company pays for itself with borrowed money (debt) and owners' money (equity). Lenders are paid first and get a fixed return; shareholders get whatever is left, which can be nothing or a fortune. The equity itself can be split into share classes that carry the same claim on profits but very different rights to vote.
Why it matters for what a company is worth
- Per share or in total. A share is a slice; the number of slices changes with fundraising, stock pay and splits. That is why Stonkometer works with total value and divides by all the shares that exist or could be created.
- Debt comes first. Equity value is enterprise value minus net debt. A company with large debts or compute commitments leaves less for shareholders.
- Control has a price. Studies of US companies find that value tends to be higher when insiders own more of the economics, and lower when they hold far more of the votes than of the economics. Fact
At a glance
| Company | Who controls it | Their economic stake | Their votes | Board |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SpaceX | Elon Musk | 46% | 84% | All seats, in effect |
| Tesla | No controller; Musk is the largest shareholder | 19.8% | 19.8% | Elected by all shareholders |
| Anthropic | Long-Term Benefit Trust and the co-founders' LLC | None through these classes | 50.1% (founders) | Trust: a majority; the rest by vote |
| OpenAI | OpenAI Foundation | 26% | Special rights | All seats |
Debt and commitments at a glance
| Company | Cash and investments | Debt | Net cash | Spending commitments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SpaceX | $89.9B | $39.0B | $50.9B | $37.8B |
| Tesla | $45.4B | $9.5B | $35.9B | None disclosed |
| Anthropic | $132B | $6.2B | $125B | Blank in the S-1 |
| OpenAI | Not disclosed | Not disclosed | Not disclosed | $1.40T |
None of the four is highly indebted in the usual sense: three hold more cash than debt. The risk sits in long compute contracts that run for years and must be paid whether or not the revenue arrives. Our view
Economic interest vs control, company by company
Each bar adds up to 100%. Compare the first bar (who gets the money) with the other two (who decides).
SpaceX
Fact Class A: one vote per share, sold to the public. Class B: ten votes per share, mostly held by Elon Musk.
- Musk's 46% includes 1.3 billion restricted Class B shares from his performance award, which he can vote before they vest. Without them he owns about 36%.
- SpaceX is a "controlled company" under Nasdaq rules, so it may skip some board-independence requirements.
- Shares issued since the IPO, such as those for Cursor, have lowered these percentages a little: 13,581M shares were outstanding on 15 Oct 2026.
Source: SpaceX IPO prospectus, shares at 1 May 2026 after the IPO.
Tesla
Fact One class of common stock: one vote per share.
- Musk's 19.8% includes 286.4M restricted shares from exercising his 2018 award, which he can vote.
- The 423.7M shares of his 2025 award are already issued but are voted in proportion to everyone else until earned. If he earns them all, his stake rises to about 28%.
- 207.5M of Musk's shares are pledged as collateral for personal loans.
Anthropic
Fact Class A: one vote, sold to the public. Class N: no vote, held mainly by strategic partners. Class E: employees, a vote on a few matters only. Class T: held by the Long-Term Benefit Trust, elects most directors. Class F: a single share held by the seven co-founders' LLC, worth 50.1% of all votes. Classes E, T and F have no economic rights.
- Together the Trust and the Founder LLC can elect the whole board, through share classes that carry no economic rights.
- The Trust's five trustees may not own Anthropic shares and are paid a fixed cash fee.
- The founders' 50.1% does not shrink when Anthropic issues more shares. It ends once fewer than three of the seven co-founders remain for 90 days.
Source: Anthropic S-1, 26 Oct 2026; the ownership percentages are still blank in the filing.
OpenAI
Fact OpenAI Group PBC is private. The OpenAI Foundation, a nonprofit, holds special voting and governance rights.
- The Foundation also holds a warrant for more shares if OpenAI's value rises more than tenfold after 15 years.
- Microsoft's stake was worth about $135B at the time; it does not control the board.
- The attorneys general of California and Delaware did not object to the plan after OpenAI added commitments on safety and its mission.
Source: OpenAI recapitalization, 28 Oct 2025; later funding rounds have diluted these stakes.
Our view Our view. All four separate money from control, for different reasons. At SpaceX it keeps one founder in charge; at Anthropic and OpenAI it is meant to protect a mission; at Tesla Musk has a fifth of the vote and has said he wants about a quarter. Buying any of them means buying a share of the profits, not a say in how they are made. That is not bad in itself: research suggests founder control helps young companies and costs more as they age. Watch what happens when founders leave or when interests clash, as in a possible SpaceX-Tesla deal.
Lexicon: ownership and control
- Capital structure
- How a company pays for itself: borrowed money (debt) and owners' money (equity), and how the equity is split into share classes with different rights.
- Equity value vs enterprise value
- Equity value, or market value, is what all the shares are worth. Enterprise value adds debt and subtracts cash: what the whole business is worth to lenders and owners together.
- Common stock
- Ordinary shares: a claim on what is left after everyone else is paid, usually with a vote.
- Preferred stock
- Shares paid back before common stock in a sale or liquidation. Start-ups sell it to investors, and it usually turns into common stock at the IPO.
- Convertible note
- A loan that turns into shares later. Part of Amazon's investment in Anthropic was made this way.
- Options, RSUs and restricted stock
- Stock pay. Options are the right to buy shares at a fixed price; RSUs promise shares later; restricted stock is issued now but taken back if conditions are not met.
- Fully diluted shares
- All shares that exist plus those that options, RSUs, warrants and convertibles could create. Value per share should use this count.
- Dilution
- When new shares are issued, each existing share owns a smaller slice of the company.
- Stock split
- One share becomes several cheaper ones; the total value does not change. Tesla split 5-for-1 in 2020 and 3-for-1 in 2022, which is why we chart total value, not the share price.
- Economic interest (cash-flow rights)
- Your share of dividends, sale proceeds and the company's value.
- Control
- The power to elect the board, approve mergers and change the rules.
- Dual-class shares
- Two or more share classes with the same economic rights but different votes per share.
- Super-voting shares
- Shares with more than one vote each, like SpaceX's ten-vote Class B.
- Non-voting shares
- Shares with economic rights but no vote, like Anthropic's Class N.
- The wedge
- The gap between someone's share of the votes and their share of the economics. Research links a wider wedge with weaker decisions for outside shareholders.
- Controlled company
- A listed company where one person, group or entity controls more than half of the vote for directors. It may skip some exchange rules, such as a majority-independent board.
- Public benefit corporation (PBC)
- A company whose directors must balance shareholders' financial interests with a stated public purpose and the interests of people affected by it. Anthropic and OpenAI Group are PBCs.
- Trust or foundation control
- Control held by a body that owns little or no economic stake, set up to protect a mission rather than earn a return.
- Sunset clause
- A rule that ends special voting rights after a set time or event, such as the founders leaving.
- Voting agreement
- An arrangement that fixes how certain shares are voted. Tesla's unearned 2025 award shares are voted in proportion to all other shares.
Questions people ask
Who owns SpaceX?
Elon Musk owns about 46% of SpaceX's shares, counting 1.3 billion restricted performance shares, and holds about 84% of the votes through ten-vote Class B shares (prospectus, June 2026). The rest belongs to public and private investors, employees and early backers.
How much of Tesla does Elon Musk own?
About 19.8% of Tesla's shares and votes (proxy statement, October 2026). His 2025 award could take it to about 28% if Tesla hits every target.
Who controls Anthropic?
Two bodies with no economic stake through their special shares: the Long-Term Benefit Trust elects most of the board, and an LLC of the seven co-founders holds 50.1% of shareholder votes after the IPO. Google and Amazon are large investors with capped stakes.
Who owns OpenAI?
At the October 2025 recapitalization, Microsoft held about 27%, the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation 26%, and employees and other investors 47%. The Foundation appoints the whole board.
What is a dual-class share structure?
Two or more share classes with the same economic rights but different votes, so founders keep control while selling most of the economics. Alphabet, Meta and SpaceX use one.
If I buy shares, do I get a say?
Tesla shares and SpaceX and Anthropic Class A shares carry votes, but at SpaceX and Anthropic outside shareholders cannot outvote the controllers. Each share still gets the same economic rights as the controllers' shares.
Serious reading
- Gompers, Ishii and Metrick, "Extreme Governance: An Analysis of Dual-Class Firms in the United States", Review of Financial Studies (2010). Firm value rises with insiders' economic stake and falls with their extra votes.
- Masulis, Wang and Xie, "Agency Problems at Dual-Class Companies", Journal of Finance (2009). The wider the gap between votes and economic stake, the more CEOs are paid and the worse their acquisitions.
- Kim and Michaely, "Sticking Around Too Long? Dynamics of the Benefits of Dual-Class Voting" (2019). Young dual-class firms do as well as others; the advantage fades as they age.
- Bebchuk and Kastiel, "The Untenable Case for Perpetual Dual-Class Stock", Virginia Law Review (2017). The case for sunset clauses that end super-voting shares after 10 to 15 years.
- Bebchuk and Kastiel, "The Perils of Small-Minority Controllers", Georgetown Law Journal (2019). Why control with a small economic stake creates conflicts of interest.
Not investment advice. Stonkometer is an educational calculator, not investment advice. Valuations depend entirely on the assumptions you choose. We are not a broker or adviser, and nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Do your own research and consider a licensed adviser. Full disclaimer