As SpaceX is set to go public on Friday with an expected record-shattering IPO, one loyal woman in Elon Musk’s inner circle is set to make a serious payday.
Gwynne Shotwell, the president and chief operating officer of Musk’s rocket and satellite company, will reap the benefits of a $2 trillion valuation – her 12.6 million shares alone will be worth $3 billion, according to The Observer.
Shotwell rose in the ranks after she was hired in 2002 to boost sales for the Falcon 1 rocket and became president and COO after she secured a $1.6 billion NASA contract in 2008 to resupply the International Space Station, according to Reuters. She raked in more than $85 million in total compensation last year, the bulk of it from stock options.
While the Northwestern University-educated mechanical engineer is tasked with a wide-ranging portfolio — including operations, legal, finance and sales — she also has nimble people-managing skills that have helped her with SpaceX’s notoriously unpredictable founder and CEO.
“When Elon says something, you have to pause and not blurt out ‘Well, that’s impossible,’” Shotwell said at a 2018 TED talk. “You zip it, you think about it and you find ways to get it done. I’ve always felt like my job was to take these ideas and turn them into company goals, to make them achievable.”
Former colleagues call the 62-year-old executive “the glue” that holds the company together as Musk moves into more ambitious territory that includes artificial intelligence and space-based data centers, according to Reuters.
