SpaceX · Elon Musk · Fortune Technology
Meet Gwynne Shotwell, the engineer-turned-COO who runs SpaceX in platform heels and is now worth over $2 billion
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When SpaceX began trading Friday under the ticker SPCX, at a valuation of roughly $1.77 trillion, President and COO Gwynne Shotwell may well have been wearing a little slip of paper in her shoes—a ritual she does when SpaceX launches things.
Key facts
- When SpaceX began trading Friday under the ticker SPCX, at a valuation of roughly $1.77 trillion, President and COO Gwynne Shotwell may well have been wearing a little slip of paper in her shoes—a
- After a month of hesitation that ended while pulled over on an LA freeway, she became employee No. 11, leaving a stable job where she held a 3% stake
- When CNBC’s Morgan Brennan asked when to expect that colony, Shotwell guessed 2035, then immediately qualified that she’s “so bad at predicting timelines
- Since SpaceX absorbed xAI, it has taken on $29 billion in debt, making it a deeply unprofitable company
Summary
It dates back to September 2008. Shotwell was in a Glasgow hotel bathroom, with the shower running so her husband could sleep, while on the phone with her team to price SpaceX’s bid for a $1.6 billion NASA resupply contract. Eighteen years later, that woman with paper in her shoes became a billionaire, owning 12.6 million shares of the most valuable company ever to go public. Shoes, as it happens, helped guide Shotwell to where she is now. Shotwell was born in 1963, the middle of three daughters of a brain surgeon and an artist, and raised in Libertyville, Illinois. She said the conference bored her until she saw one fabulous woman engineer.