SpaceX (SPCX.US) announced on Friday that Don Harrison has resigned from the company's board of directors.
Harrison has worked at Google since 2005 and currently serves as Google's President of Global Partnerships and Corporate Development. The leadership change comes roughly five months after SpaceX completed its largest IPO on record. At the same time, SpaceX and Tesla (TSLA.US) are evaluating a potential merger through a special committee, and the impact of Alphabet (GOOGL.US), Google's parent company, holding SpaceX shares on its financial statements is also drawing attention.
SpaceX said in a regulatory filing that "Mr. Harrison's decision to resign was not due to any disagreement with the company on any matter relating to its operations, policies, or practices." SpaceX thanked Harrison for his "many contributions and his years of dedication and outstanding service" to the company.
Elon Musk said last month that SpaceX and Tesla have established a special committee composed of independent directors to evaluate a potential merger. According to reports, the two sides are working to announce an agreement in the first half of next year so the transaction can be completed during the Trump administration. Musk has not yet said which board members are on the special committees at the two companies.
Among the directors SpaceX identifies as independent, Harrison was one of them. Others included Ira Ehrenpreis, Roelof Botha, Luke Nosek, Steve Jurvetson, and Randy Glein.
Alphabet has maintained close ties with SpaceX and invested in the Musk-led company in 2015, when SpaceX was valued at about $12 billion. As of Friday's close, Alphabet was SpaceX's largest institutional investor, with its stake worth $74 billion. SpaceX's current market value is about $1.8 trillion.
Because SpaceX's share price fell last quarter, the investment weighed on Alphabet's financial results released last week. Google is an important customer of SpaceX and has agreed to pay up to $920 million per month to SpaceX's artificial intelligence unit for computing power from data centers in the area around Memphis, Tennessee. The two companies have also recently worked together through Project Suncatcher to send Google AI chips into orbit.
At the same time, Google and SpaceX compete in AI models and chatbots. Google said in an emailed statement: "While Don will step down from the board, we remain firmly supportive of SpaceX's mission and are excited to continue our long-standing partnership."
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