SpaceX director Donald Harrison resigns from board a day after US election

Harrison, who joined SpaceX's board in 2015 as part of Google's investment, stepped down on November 4. The exit comes as independent directors of SpaceX and Tesla consider a potential merger

By Carmen Arroyo

 

SpaceX board member Donald Harrison resigned from the role after more than a decade, leaving the company as a group of independent directors consider a potential merger with Tesla Inc. 

Harrison informed SpaceX of his intention to resign on Nov. 4, one day after the US midterm election, according to a SpaceX filing issued after the close Friday. The company said his decision was not due to any disagreement with the company.

 

Harrison joined the board in 2015 as part of Google’s investment in Musk’s rocket, satellite and artificial intelligence company. He was an independent director and still works for Google parent Alphabet Inc., leading its corporate partnerships and development team.

 

 

SpaceX and Tesla have formed special committees of independent directors to consider a potential combination, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said last month. There’s a push to announce a deal by the first half of next year so that it closes during this administration, Bloomberg News reported.

 

Musk hasn’t said which board members are on the companies’ special committees. Harrison was among the directors SpaceX considers independent, alongside Ira Ehrenpreis, Roelof Botha, Luke Nosek, Steve Jurvetson and Randy Glein.

 

Alphabet remains one of SpaceX’s leading backers, with the second-biggest shareholding after Musk. The investment weighed on the earnings results Alphabet reported last week due to SpaceX shares declining last quarter.

 

Google and SpaceX have rival AI models and chatbots in Gemini and Grok that compete with Anthropic PBC’s Claude and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.