Meet Gwynne Shotwell, the lady who actually runs SpaceX for Elon Musk

One former SpaceX worker, Vincent Peters, instructed Enterprise Insider that Shotwell “is the singular most essential particular person inside SpaceX outdoors of Elon.”

“She strikes the needle for worker morale and buyer confidence in SpaceX and serves as an azimuth inside the firm as priorities evolve,” he added.

Shotwell was certainly one of SpaceX’s earliest workers. This is every thing we all know in regards to the highly effective SpaceX president.

Adolescence

Shotwell was born in 1963 and raised in Illinois. She is the daughter of a brain surgeon and an artist and has two sisters, in accordance with an interview with the Los Angeles Instances.

An A-student in highschool, she later gained an MSc in mechanical engineering and utilized arithmetic from Northwestern College.

She instructed the LA Instances she developed an early curiosity in machines. This developed right into a profession within the automotive subject earlier than shifting into the aerospace trade.

One of many first SpaceX workers

Shotwell was the eleventh particular person employed by SpaceX.

She joined the corporate in 2002 as vp of enterprise improvement following a stint at spacecraft developer Microcosm.

Shotwell instructed the LA Instances in 2013: “I knew early on if these guys [at SpaceX] could not make it within the house trade, no person will. If we hadn’t achieved success, I used to be keen to go away the aerospace trade altogether and go promote actual property or one thing. Happily, that did not occur.”

Over her 22 years at SpaceX, Shotwell has risen via the ranks to turn into COO and president, making her one of the vital essential figures.

Secret to SpaceX’s success

Shotwell has lengthy been rumored to tug the strings at SpaceX.

For a lot of her time on the firm, she has overseen its operations and gross sales whereas Musk has targeted on growing the know-how. Buyers have praised the pair’s partnership and credit score it with a lot of SpaceX’s success.

Peters, founding father of Inheritance AI, instructed BI that Shotwell was the “cornerstone of consistency and continuity at SpaceX” amid “Elon’s involvement in his entities outdoors of SpaceX.”

He mentioned Shotwell’s management fashion was “between transformational management and democratic management,” including she was extraordinarily approachable to all workers.

SpaceX has about 13,000 workers in California, Texas, and Florida.

The COO has 21 direct studies, whereas Musk has solely 4. Shotwell additionally oversees most of SpaceX’s central enterprise, together with the groups engaged on Starlink, Falcon, and Starship.

In accordance with Forbes, Shotwell has an estimated stake in SpaceX of lower than 1%.

It appears she enjoys getting hands-on at instances:

Relationship with Elon Musk

Shotwell has mentioned she enjoys working for Musk and beforehand praised the billionaire’s administration fashion.

“I really like working for Elon,” she mentioned in a 2018 TED Talk.

“He is humorous, and basically, with out him saying something, he drives you to do your greatest work. He would not need to say a phrase. You simply need to do nice work,” she instructed the viewers.

Shotwell has come to Musk’s protection on quite a few events, most just lately over claims about his conduct with female SpaceX workers.

In response to a few of the claims in a Wall Avenue Journal report, she mentioned: “I proceed to be amazed by what this extraordinary group of persons are attaining day-after-day, even amidst all of the forces appearing in opposition to us. And Elon is among the greatest people I do know.”

Shotwell was additionally talked about within the Journal report after one worker claimed the COO had accused her of having an affair with her husband.

Representatives for SpaceX didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from BI.