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Billionaire resigns CEO role to pay, train for SpaceX’s first crewed Starship Moon launch
Eccentric Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa — known for collecting modern art and founding online fashion retailer Zozo — has stepped down as CEO to free up time and money for his privately-chartered launch around the moon.
Set to launch no earlier than 2023 on what is expected to be SpaceX’s first crewed, circumlunar Starship launch, Maezawa stated in September 2018 that he had arranged to pay SpaceX a huge amount of money (likely several hundred million dollars) for that right. Along with resigning as CEO of Zozo, Maezawa will sell ~85% of his 36% stake to Yahoo Japan, giving the conglomerate a 50.1% ownership stake of Zozo and Maezawa a $2.3 billion cash windfall.
As noted by Business Insider, when asked by a follower if he had any money after an announcement that he would sell off a portion of his extensive art collection in a Sotheby’s auction, Maezawa admitted that he frequently has “no money” because he spends it “right away”, inadvisable but admittedly in-line with his eccentric reputation.
The resignation and sale comes just weeks after SpaceX successfully completed Starhopper’s second and final launch, reaching an altitude of ~150m (500 ft) with the power of a single Raptor engine. During a September 2018 SpaceX press event, Maezawa announced that he had come to an agreement with the company to buy the entirety of Starship’s first crewed mission around the Moon. The billionaire’s motivation: gifting the 8-10 available ‘seats’ to some of the best artists in the world in a project known as dearMoon.
At the same event, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk estimated that the company’s Starship program would cost anwhere from $2B- $10B and confirmed that the bulk of Maezawa’s contributions would go directly towards the rocket’s development costs. Business Insider also quotes Musk as stating that “[Maezawa is] paying a lot of money that would help with the ship and its booster – ultimately paying for the average citizen to travel to other planets.” Alongside Yusaku’s frank Twitter acknowledgment that he may not be the most financially responsible individual and repeated indications that he is extremely proud of Zozo, it’s safe to surmise that the decision to resign was not easily made.
More likely than not, now that SpaceX has completed its Starhopper flight program and is on the verge of its first Starship prototype flight tests, Maezawa simply needs money – and a huge amount of it – to continue fulfilling his contractual commitment to SpaceX. Even if a significant portion of the $2.2-2.3B cash payout he is set to receive goes to settling old debts, the Japanese billionaire should now have more than enough assets to fully fund his SpaceX contract.
At the time, SpaceX had partially completed pieces of the megarocket – then referred to as BFR – in a makeshift development facility at the Port of Los Angeles, pictured above with Maezawa. Since then, SpaceX has renamed the rocket to Starship, drastically redesigned it, and relocated all production operations to Hawthorne, CA, Boca Chica, Texas, and Cocoa, Florida.
Currently, SpaceX is developing twin Starship prototypes at launch and landing test facilities in Boca Chica, Texas (“Mk1”) and in Cocoa, FL (“Mk2”). Musk recently visited the facilities and announced that he is planning to present a technical Starship development update as early as September 28th.
According to an interview posted on WWDJapan.com as part of a September 12th Zozo press conference, Maezawa explained that he believes he made some missteps while serving as Zozo CEO, negatively affecting the company’s bottom line. He believes that more team-oriented business practices and a change of leadership could help to improve the company, which is currently holding its head well above water but still likely to far fall behind its FY2019 performance goals. It’s also hoped that selling an ownership stake in the company will give Yahoo Japan the flexibility to grow Zozo and improve its global reach.
The role of Zozo CEO now goes to Kotaro Sawada who accompanied Maezawa on stage at the announcement event along with Yahoo Japan’s president, Kentaro Kawamata. According to Forbes.com Maezawa stated that “Sawada is the exact opposite of my instinct-based management and adept at management based on logic, like crunching data and testing things out first.”
While Yahoo Japan will look to expand Zozo and the associated online shopping mall Zozotown to compete with other online retailers such as Amazon and Rakuten, Maezawa says that he will turn his attention to achieving his personal goal of a trip around the moon. He mentioned that he plans to fly to space prior to his circumlunar flight in 2023 and will spend much of his time training and learning foreign languages for spaceflight.
He also plans to pursue building another company from the ground up. Whether his next company will be an endeavor focused around space tourism remains to be seen.
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Tesla Robotaxi’s biggest rival sends latest statement with big expansion
The new expanded geofence now covers a broader region of Austin and its metropolitan areas, extended south to Manchaca and north beyond US-183.
Tesla Robotaxi’s biggest rival sent its latest statement earlier this month by making a big expansion to its geofence, pushing the limits up by over 50 percent and nearing Tesla’s size.
Waymo announced earlier this month that it was expanding its geofence in Austin by slightly over 50 percent, now servicing an area of 140 square miles, over the previous 90 square miles that it has been operating in since July 2025.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk shades Waymo: ‘Never really had a chance’
The new expanded geofence now covers a broader region of Austin and its metropolitan areas, extended south to Manchaca and north beyond US-183.
These rides are fully driverless, which sets them apart from Tesla slightly. Tesla operates its Robotaxi program in Austin with a Safety Monitor in the passenger’s seat on local roads and in the driver’s seat for highway routes.
It has also tested fully driverless Robotaxi services internally in recent weeks, hoping to remove Safety Monitors in the near future, after hoping to do so by the end of 2025.
Tesla Robotaxi service area vs. Waymo’s new expansion in Austin, TX. pic.twitter.com/7cnaeiduKY
— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) January 13, 2026
Although Waymo’s geofence has expanded considerably, it still falls short of Tesla’s by roughly 31 square miles, as the company’s expansion back in late 2025 put it up to roughly 171 square miles.
There are several differences between the two operations apart from the size of the geofence and the fact that Waymo is able to operate autonomously.
Waymo emphasizes mature, fully autonomous operations in a denser but smaller area, while Tesla focuses on more extensive coverage and fleet scaling potential, especially with the potential release of Cybercab and a recently reached milestone of 200 Robotaxis in its fleet across Austin and the Bay Area.
However, the two companies are striving to achieve the same goal, which is expanding the availability of driverless ride-sharing options across the United States, starting with large cities like Austin and the San Francisco Bay Area. Waymo also operates in other cities, like Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Orlando, Phoenix, and Atlanta, among others.
Tesla is working to expand to more cities as well, and is hoping to launch in Miami, Houston, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Dallas.
Elon Musk
Tesla automotive will be forgotten, but not in a bad way: investor
It’s no secret that Tesla’s automotive division has been its shining star for some time. For years, analysts and investors have focused on the next big project or vehicle release, quarterly delivery frames, and progress in self-driving cars. These have been the big categories of focus, but that will all change soon.
Entrepreneur and Angel investor Jason Calacanis believes that Tesla will one day be only a shade of how it is recognized now, as its automotive side will essentially be forgotten, but not in a bad way.
It’s no secret that Tesla’s automotive division has been its shining star for some time. For years, analysts and investors have focused on the next big project or vehicle release, quarterly delivery frames, and progress in self-driving cars. These have been the big categories of focus, but that will all change soon.
I subscribed to Tesla Full Self-Driving after four free months: here’s why
Eventually, and even now, the focus has been on real-world AI and Robotics, both through the Full Self-Driving and autonomy projects that Tesla has been working on, as well as the Optimus program, which is what Calacanis believes will be the big disruptor of the company’s automotive division.
On the All-In podcast, Calcanis revealed he had visited Tesla’s Optimus lab earlier this month, where he was able to review the Optimus Gen 3 prototype and watch teams of engineers chip away at developing what CEO Elon Musk has said will be the big product that will drive the company even further into the next few decades.
Calacanis said:
“Nobody will remember that Tesla ever made a car. They will only remember the Optimus.”
He added that Musk “is going to make a billion of those.”
Musk has stated this point himself, too. He at one point said that he predicted that “Optimus will be the biggest product of all-time by far. Nothing will even be close. I think it’ll be 10 times bigger than the next biggest product ever made.”
He has also indicated that he believes 80 percent of Tesla’s value will be Optimus.
Optimus aims to totally revolutionize the way people live, and Musk has said that working will be optional due to its presence. Tesla’s hopes for Optimus truly show a crystal clear image of the future and what could be possible with humanoid robots and AI.
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Tesla Robotaxi fleet reaches new milestone that should expel common complaint
There have been many complaints in the eight months that the Robotaxi program has been active about ride availability, with many stating that they have been confronted with excessive wait times for a ride, as the fleet was very small at the beginning of its operation.
Tesla Robotaxi is active in both the Bay Area of California and Austin, Texas, and the fleet has reached a new milestone that should expel a common complaint: lack of availability.
It has now been confirmed by Robotaxi Tracker that the fleet of Tesla’s ride-sharing vehicles has reached 200, with 158 of those being available in the Bay Area and 42 more in Austin. Despite the program first launching in Texas, the company has more vehicles available in California.
The California area of operation is much larger than it is in Texas, and the vehicle fleet is larger because Tesla operates it differently; Safety Monitors sit in the driver’s seat in California while FSD navigates. In Texas, Safety Monitors sit in the passenger’s seat, but will switch seats when routing takes them on the highway.
Tesla has also started testing rides without any Safety Monitors internally.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
This new milestone confronts a common complaint of Robotaxi riders in Austin and the Bay, which is vehicle availability.
There have been many complaints in the eight months that the Robotaxi program has been active about ride availability, with many stating that they have been confronted with excessive wait times for a ride, as the fleet was very small at the beginning of its operation.
I attempted to take a @robotaxi ride today from multiple different locations and time of day (from 9:00 AM to about 3:00 PM in Austin but never could do so.
I always got a “High Service Demand” message … I really hope @Tesla is about to go unsupervised and greatly plus up the… pic.twitter.com/IOUQlaqPU2
— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) November 26, 2025
With that being said, there have been some who have said wait times have improved significantly, especially in the Bay, where the fleet is much larger.
Robotaxi wait times here in Silicon Valley used to be around 15 minutes for me.
Over the past few days, they’ve been consistently under five minutes, and with scaling through the end of this year, they should drop to under two minutes. pic.twitter.com/Kbskt6lUiR
— Alternate Jones (@AlternateJones) January 6, 2026
Tesla’s approach to the Robotaxi fleet has been to prioritize safety while also gathering its footing as a ride-hailing platform.
Of course, there have been and still will be growing pains, but overall, things have gone smoothly, as there have been no major incidents that would derail the company’s ability to continue developing an effective mode of transportation for people in various cities in the U.S.
Tesla plans to expand Robotaxi to more cities this year, including Miami, Las Vegas, and Houston, among several others.
Tesla Robotaxi’s biggest rival sends latest statement with big expansion
Tesla automotive will be forgotten, but not in a bad way: investor
