The Woman Behind SpaceX

0:05Micah, am I right that your beat is the business of space? Yes, it is. It is indeed the business of space. That's our colleague, Micah Maidenberg. And is there a lot of business in space these days? Yes, there is. Well, it's a really great question. How to make money in space is, there's a few ways to do it, and lots of ideas on how to find more ways to do it. And in the space business, there's one company that's undeniably the most important. Elon Musk's SpaceX. They're not just a supplier of a part or software or something like that, but they're building rockets like Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Starship.

0:52They're building and deploying and operating satellites for most notably their Starlink satellite internet fleet. And, you know, ultimately, the goal for years has been to mount some kind of, you know, human mission to Mars. That's long been, you know, Elon Musk's dream and why he started the company about 20 years ago. Most people do associate SpaceX primarily with Elon Musk. But, like, on a day-to-day basis, who is in charge? On a day-to-day basis, Gwen Shotwell is in charge. We aren't human if we don't go seek out what there is to learn in space. And I think robotic exploration is great as precursor missions, but we need to get out to other planets and certainly out to other stars.

1:46Gwen Shotwell is the longtime president of SpaceX. She's been in that role since 2008. She's very tough, very charismatic. And in the space industry, you know, sometimes people will just talk about Gwen. You know what I mean? She's known by like her first name, almost like Madonna. She has a certain kind of mystique about her that's built on, you know, what SpaceX has been able to accomplish over the years. But generally, she's sort of more behind the scenes. This year, Gwen Shotwell is preparing to lead SpaceX through maybe its biggest year yet. The company is at this really kind of unprecedented moment where they're actively considering going public, raising potentially billions of dollars in an initial public offering.

2:39And, you know, Gwen, as the longtime number two at SpaceX, is, you know, suddenly kind of like emerging into the spotlight a little bit more. in the past. So this is kind of a big moment for her. It's a very big moment for her and for the company.

2:57Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Thursday, January 22nd.

3:10Coming up on the show, the woman behind the success of SpaceX.

3:31Gwen Shotwell has been at SpaceX since the beginning. She's 62 years old with a background in engineering. When she was a teenager, her mother dragged her down to an engineering event sponsored by a women's engineering society. in Chicago, near where she grew up. And she liked the mechanical engineer on this panel and decided that day to become a mechanical engineer. She laid her studies engineering. Actually, I was not a space nerd as a kid. I was a car nerd. So I should probably be working at Tesla. But I kind of fell into this industry. I was looking for a job after my bachelor's degree, and I ran into one of my former professors, and he was working in Los Angeles at the Aerospace Corporation.

4:19And so I interviewed and got the job there, but that was my first role in space, actually. And eventually has this conversation and interview with Elon Musk in 2002 about SpaceX, which back then was a tiny startup with no product, but a lot of hope.

4:42In the early 2000s, there weren't many private companies operating in space. Still, SpaceX had big dreams. CEO Elon Musk's great ambition is to colonize Mars and make humans a multi-planetary species. I think we should really do our very best to become a multi-planet species and to extend consciousness beyond Earth. And we should do it now. Thank you. But when Shotwell first joined the company, SpaceX didn't even have a working rocket. So her first job at SpaceX was as vice president of business development. And that's a big title to basically say she was doing sales. I was selling the team. I was selling the ideal.

5:25I was selling the promise and the hope of reasonably priced launch. She was the one beating down doors at NASA, elsewhere in the government, saying like, hey, we're building a rocket. We think we can launch your satellites, take you to orbit, do it at a cheaper price than alternatives that are out there. In the early days, she was sort of the face with customers trying to kind of say, believe in us. Even though we don't have a rocket, like, we're going to, and it's going to be great. For years, Shotwell built out relationships for SpaceX, while the company's engineering teams experimented with rockets.

6:02All that work led to a pivotal moment in 2008.

6:10when the company launched its first successful rocket, the Falcon 1. Here's Shotwell at an event talking about that launch. Thank goodness. So it's a life or death moment for the company, right? You're a little more dramatic about that launch than I am, actually. I figured we could pull a fifth launch off, but that was it. That same year, Shotwell was promoted to president of the company, and it led to more business for SpaceX. In 2008, SpaceX lands this cargo contract with NASA to transport cargo to the International Space Station. It's a$1.6 billion contract, and it really helped stabilize the company and give them runway to kind of keep going on their quest to sort of do, you know, big things in orbit.

7:00How important was that contract for SpaceX and also for Shotwell? So at that point, SpaceX is a few years old. They're landing this big government contract. They have a path forward on their rockets. And they're becoming more credible, right? Becoming more of a part of the space landscape. And Shotwell is there sort of guiding them through that. And that's a big reason why she got the nod to get promoted. As she rose up at SpaceX, Shotwell worked closely with Elon Musk. Here she is talking about her working relationship with Musk in 2016. I also have learned that he's rarely wrong, even if that's super irritating and it feels not right when you first hear what he wants to go achieve.

7:46And so if it doesn't sound like what you think we should be doing, I always stop and think, OK, we've been through this before. think hard about what he's saying, what he's trying to achieve, and figure out how to make it work. Talk to me about her relationship with Elon Musk. It seems like most people don't stay super close to him or last very long in his circles. He has sort of a personality that you kind of have to manage, it seems like. But she's been able to do it for decades at this point. What makes Shotwell different? She has a very unique relationship with Musk, that's for sure. She's very clear about who the boss is ultimately, and that's Musk.

8:35And when Musk wants to do something or go in a direction at SpaceX, I mean, that carries weight, you know what I mean? And generally, that's where the company goes. And I think Shotwell understands that. But, you know, she has also been really fierce and really loyal to Musk, including after really tense moments involving Musk and SpaceX. One tense moment was in 2022, when allegations emerged that Musk harassed a flight attendant. Some SpaceX employees started raising concerns. You know, Musk has called these allegations untrue. But inside the company, employees were upset. that some of them posted this internal letter, you know, protesting what they saw as the company's failure to take harassment allegations seriously.

9:29And Shotwell intervened. She took issue with the letter. She defended Musk. She said she didn't believe the allegations based on that sort of history together. And eventually some of the people that were involved in putting this letter, this protest letter together, were fired.

9:51Shotwell has stayed loyal to Musk as his profile has grown, including on the political stage. Last summer, Musk had a public falling out with President Trump. In response, Musk threatened to decommission a spacecraft called Dragon, which transports astronauts to and from the International Space Station. This is a big deal. So you've got Musk, like, threatening to cancel this vehicle. Folks at NASA are taking note of this. And Shotwell finds a way sort of behind the scenes to kind of try to calm everybody down. You know, she assured officials at NASA that the company and agency, you know, would make it through it, would make it through the situation.

10:31You know, even as two, you know, one of the world's wealthiest persons and the president are having just this very big public spat. What word would you use to describe what Shotwell does for Musk? I think maybe the word I would use is like translator. She knows how to like go through back channels to sort of translate things that her boss is like doing and kind of just assuage people's nerves. Shalwell is the person that they go to when something's going on to understand what Musk is doing or what SpaceX thinks. She has a ton of credibility that allows her to kind of operate in that manner. That credibility will become even more important as SpaceX prepares for a possible public offering.

11:21I think Shotwell is likely to play a very important role in the IPO process. I think as SpaceX continues to sort of like consider its options for the potential public offering, like Shotwell is going to be very much like in the middle of that one way or the other. What's driving SpaceX to go public? That's next.

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12:45about its finances. There's been very little over the years about SpaceX, like, profit and loss. And, like, we've reported on that at the Wall Street Journal a few times. But, like, there's just, there's a lot more disclosure, investor commentary, presentations. You sort of have to, like, sell yourself and explain yourself to the public markets, to investors of all stripes. And that, But typically, SpaceX has done that, again, kind of behind the scenes in the private markets. And that'll change a little bit if they go public. Gwen Shotwell has also publicly expressed reservations. Here she is on CNBC in 2018.

13:27We actually don't talk too much about going public right now. We keep our heads down and focused on doing the work that we have to do, try to achieve the vision that Elon sets out for us. one way or the other, it's not until then, at a minimum. We can't go public until we're flying regularly to Mars. That hasn't happened yet, right? Right. And so, like, the posture has changed at the company, and they are exploring this offering. Shotwell hasn't publicly discussed the company's IPO preparations, and SpaceX didn't respond to requests for comment. The reason for the about-face, according to Wall Street Journal reporting, is the AI boom.

14:08Specifically, Elon Musk wants to put AI data centers in space. Musk has become obsessed with the idea of SpaceX being the first to do it. Can you say more about AI data centers in space? Like, is that a thing? Why do we want to do that? Yeah, well, it's not a thing. It's an idea. It's a very unproven concept that you could take AI compute, you know, the sort of data and computational backbone of the artificial intelligence industry and move it into space. The idea is that these data centers would be run completely on solar power instead of using resources on Earth. Artificial intelligence depends on immense amounts of power and computing capabilities that are housed, of course, here on Earth in these gigantic data centers.

15:03And building and powering these data centers on Earth is really complicated. They're all trying to think about, could you create a cluster of satellites in low Earth orbit or some other place and turn them into a networked data center that would provide this AI compute from orbit? To get those data centers to space, SpaceX would need to finish its next generation spaceship called Starship. Starship is this absolutely giant, extremely powerful rocket that SpaceX wants to make fully reusable. It's been test flying Starship for a couple of years and had some real hits and a few misses with that vehicle.

15:50But it's still sort of in an experimental phase. They're still trying to build it out, prove that it can work. and prove that can start, like, deploying actual satellites. But what SpaceX has said, and this was in a memo to employees in December, is that any potential IPO proceeds could be used to ramp up launches of Starship to a quote-unquote insane flight rate, according to that memo. It gives you a little taste of the ambition there from SpaceX. The billionaire also sees a SpaceX IPO as a way to help his AI company, XAI, catch up to rivals, according to Wall Street Journal reporting. Such huge projects would require lots of money, and an IPO could deliver billions of dollars of capital in one fell swoop.

16:40A lot of what Shotwell does and where she seems to be most successful is kind of creating these relationships, like having these kind of back channel conversations and developing stuff in private. With the IPO potentially coming up, will that have to change for her? Well, I mean, yes and no. Like, let me say no, because I think even if, let's assume SpaceX goes through with an IPO and ends up as a public company. I mean, I have little doubt that Shotwell would continue to maintain those relationships and do the kind of like behind the scenes work with the customers that she's done for many, many years.

17:23But if SpaceX becomes a public company, it'll be a new variable for a company that has always been private. Elon Musk said in June that he expected SpaceX to generate$15.5 billion in revenue for 2025. And according to Wall Street Journal reporting in December, SpaceX is in talks for an$800 billion valuation ahead of it potentially going public this year. If the IPO happens, it could make Musk the world's first trillionaire. And as for Gwen Shotwell, she could make a lot of money as well.

18:08That's all for today, Thursday, January 22nd. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Corey Dreebush, Emily Glazer and Berber Jin. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.

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