The Information · SpaceX · Elon Musk · CNBC Technology
How Elon Musk's second-in-command Gwynne Shotwell helped turn SpaceX into an IPO giant
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In 2002, SpaceX founder Elon Musk poached Gwynne Shotwell as one of his earliest hires at the less-than-a-year-old startup.
Key facts
- According to SpaceX's IPO filing last month, Shotwell's compensation totaled $85.8 million in 2025, with the vast majority coming from options awards
- While Elon's setting the vision, she's the one making sure it gets delivered," Nathan Silvernail, who spent seven years at SpaceX as an engineer on projects like life support systems from 2014
- Elon creates the urgent, sometimes uncomfortable disruption," Derek Huerta, who worked as a satellite engineer at SpaceX from 2017 to 2024, told CNBC
- Today, Shotwell, 62, oversees SpaceX's 22,000-person full-time workforce, after steering the company's early Falcon rocket development and contracts with NASA
Summary
Twenty-four years later, Shotwell leads the company's day-to-day running as president and chief operating officer and rang the trading bell on the Nasdaq trading floor for the company's blockbuster IPO on Friday. CNBC spoke to four people who Shotwell worked with and said that, while Musk is the visionary behind the company's direction, Shotwell is the one getting stuff done. "While Elon's setting the vision, she's the one making sure it gets delivered," Nathan Silvernail, who spent seven years at SpaceX as an engineer on projects like life support systems from 2014 to 2021, told CNBC. "She handles the operational execution that keeps the business running and brings in the funding," he said.