On 12 June at the Nasdaq market in New York City, a woman took the stage to open trading before SpaceX's shares were officially listed. Many wondered who she was and why she was given the same opportunity as CEO Elon Musk to ring the bell at this historic event in the U.S. stock market.
This woman is Gwynne Shotwell, President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of SpaceX. She is a key figure behind the company's tremendous success and is considered the number two, second only to Elon Musk.
On the first day of SPCX stock trading, Gwynne Shotwell also benefited from the fundraising, with her wealth soaring to $2 billion overnight, calculated based on the value of her shares at the closing price that day.
According to Forbes, she currently has a net worth of $2.4 billion, mostly from SpaceX, which she joined when it was still a startup less than a year old. Over 24 years, she has worked closely with Elon Musk, earning his trust to make decisions and manage a trillion-dollar company while overseeing over 20,000 employees.
This article from Thairath Money's columnHow to Make Moneywill introduce you to Gwynne Shotwell, exploring her life journey, how she came to work with Elon Musk, and how she became a key leader at SpaceX today.
Let's go back: Gwynne Shotwell was born in 1963 as the middle daughter, growing up with an older and a younger sister in Libertyville, Illinois. Her father was a neurosurgeon, and her mother was an artist.
At age five, she had the chance to watch the Apollo 11 moon landing but later admitted she found it "boring" at the time and never imagined her life would intersect with the space industry.
In high school, she excelled academically and in extracurriculars. At Libertyville High, she was both a cheerleader and a basketball team representative. She graduated with straight A's and top grades.
Yet, Gwynne Shotwell was unsure about her career path until her mother pushed her to attend a women engineers' panel at the Illinois Institute of Technology. There, she found key inspiration to pursue a male-dominated field.
She told Fortune magazine that day was very boring until she saw a female engineer she called "a fabulous woman engineer" wearing beautiful matching shoes and handbag.
That moment made her realize "mechanical engineering seemed accessible." After the event, she went home with a new thought: "Okay, I will study mechanical engineering because I think she’s cool."
Gwynne Shotwell later studied mechanical engineering at Northwestern University, one of just three women in a class of 36. After graduating, she joined Chrysler's management trainee program after being disappointed by a job application at IBM.
But after a short time, she realized that path was not for her and returned to Northwestern University to earn a master's degree in applied mathematics. Afterward, she officially began her engineering career.
After graduating, Gwynne Shotwell worked as a thermal systems engineer for space systems at The Aerospace Corporation for nearly 10 years before moving to Microcosm, a low-cost rocket development company, where she managed the space systems division for about four years.
In 2002, she had lunch with a former colleague who had joined SpaceX, then a startup less than a year old. That colleague invited her to tour the company and arranged a brief 3-4 minute meeting with Elon Musk, the founder.
Their conversation was a short introduction, but she soon realized it was a recruitment talk. She wasn’t looking for a new job and didn't even have her resume, but that same afternoon she received a call from SpaceX inviting her to join as head of business development.
Surprisingly, after hanging up, she pondered for months before calling Elon Musk back saying, "I'm an idiot." She thought it was crazy to leave a stable job where she owned 3% of the company.
Elon Musk laughed and said, "Welcome to the team." That made Gwynne Shotwell the 11th member of a small space startup aiming to colonize Mars.
She told Fortune she had decided if SpaceX failed, she would leave the space industry forever, adding, "I’d probably sell real estate or be a barista instead."
In 2008, after six years at SpaceX, Elon Musk appointed Gwynne Shotwell as President and COO. Colleagues say she is the one who translates and turns the CEO's extreme ideas into reality.
"While Elon sets the vision, Gwynne is the one who delivers that vision," a SpaceX employee told CNBC.
Over 24 years, she has managed daily operations, sales, grown the staff from a few dozen to over 20,000, and serves on the company's eight-member board.
"She oversees all operations that keep the business running and brings capital into the company," the employee added, noting that Shotwell meets clients, builds relationships, and closes important contracts herself.
Shotwell explained that her role differs clearly from Elon Musk's. She sees herself as a partner enabling Musk's success, focusing on daily operations while Musk focuses on high-level strategy and technical details.
Over the years, she has overseen nearly every major SpaceX project, from rocket development and Starlink to the xAI merger, client communications, regulatory coordination, and investor relations.
Former NASA executives have praised her ability to sell rocket launch missions even when SpaceX had not yet succeeded in launching rockets.
Her working style contrasts with Elon Musk's. While the CEO creates disruptive ideas that challenge the team, Shotwell is the frontline who absorbs the impact and transforms those ideas into achievable goals for thousands of engineers, reducing conflicts and uniting everyone towards a common goal.
Regarding compensation, SpaceX's recent IPO filings show Shotwell earned $85.8 million in 2025, mostly from stock options, with a base salary of $1.08 million per year.
After SpaceX's first day on the stock market, her wealth from SpaceX shares surpassed $2.4 billion, officially making her a billionaire.
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