How free legal support from RCFP helped ProPublica uncover SpaceX’s foreign investors

ProPublica reported last month that a middleman firm helped private investors with addresses in China, Hong Kong, and Russia buy stakes in Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, including a businessman with ties to Chinese military contractors. 

The nonprofit news outlet’s reporting is based on newly unsealed records that it obtained through successful litigation with free legal support from attorneys at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the law firm Shaw Keller LLP. Delaware courts sided with ProPublica in its effort to make public a private investor list filed under seal in a legal dispute between SpaceX investors. 

It’s the latest court victory for ProPublica in the newsroom’s long-running fight to help the public better understand who is backing one of the United States’ most important military contractors. 

Last year, records unsealed with the help of Reporters Committee attorneys led to exclusive reporting from ProPublica by journalists Justin Elliott and Joshua Kaplan. One story used previously sealed records to explain how SpaceX secretly allows investment from China, while another reported for the first time that Musk’s company took direct investments from Chinese investors. Both stories prompted congressional inquiries that raised national security concerns.

“It’s enormously valuable to have the help of RCFP on something like this. This just wouldn’t have been possible without the help of you all.”

— ProPublica reporter Justin Elliott

ProPublica’s latest story sheds even more light on the people who have a financial interest in SpaceX. As Elliott and Kaplan reported, the private investor list shows that at least a dozen investors with ties to China, Hong Kong, and Russia bought shares in SpaceX ranging from $800,000 to $40 million through a middleman firm called Tomales Bay Capital between 2018 and 2021.

“This was one of the few glimpses that people got into who invested in the company before it went public,” Elliott told the Reporters Committee in an interview. The investor list “raised obvious questions, including whether these investors had access to any non-public information that could have been helpful to SpaceX competitors.”

The investments were made public after ProPublica moved to challenge the sealing of two trial exhibits filed in a dispute involving Tomales Bay Capital. On behalf of ProPublica, attorneys from the Reporters Committee and Shaw Keller argued, among other things, that the public interest in accessing the investor list far outweighed any harm that may result from its disclosure.

“SpaceX is a uniquely important company,” Elliott said. “It’s incredibly intertwined with the U.S. government.”

In January, the Delaware Chancery Court held that Tomales Bay Capital “failed to establish good cause for continued confidential treatment” of the SpaceX investors. Months later, the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s decision.

Elliott said he’s grateful that Reporters Committee attorneys were willing to litigate the case all the way to Delaware’s highest court.

“It’s enormously valuable to have the help of RCFP on something like this,” he said. “I can’t imagine how much that would have cost if we’d hired some firm and were getting billed for every hour. This just wouldn’t have been possible without the help of you all.”

Check out ProPublica’s latest reporting to learn more about SpaceX’s foreign investors.