{"id":474190,"date":"2026-06-12T19:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T19:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/474190\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T19:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T19:10:10","slug":"spacex-just-made-ipo-history-gwynne-shotwell-made-it-possible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/474190\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX just made IPO history. Gwynne Shotwell made it possible"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, SpaceX<\/a> broke an all-time record with the largest IPO in history<\/a>. With 555.6 million shares priced at $135 each, Elon Musk\u2019s space and AI business raised $75 billion\u2014with more to come as shares trade for the first time today.<\/p>\n

This morning, Musk stood behind a Nasdaq-branded podium in Starbase, Texas, and was projected via video into Nasdaq\u2019s HQ. Actually in person at the exchange in New York, meanwhile, was SpaceX\u2019s president and COO, Gwynne Shotwell. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a characteristic division of duties at SpaceX, where Shotwell has been responsible for years for the company\u2019s day-to-day operations, growth, and strategy for its workforce of 22,000 people (and is a steadier representative to Wall Street). She was SpaceX\u2019s 11th employee, joining in 2002. At 62, she\u2019s worked in the space business for almost 40 years. Just a few weeks ago, she ranked No. 32<\/a> on Fortune\u2019s list of the 100 Most Powerful Women in Business\u2014a huge leap from No. 49 in 2025 as SpaceX approached this monster listing.<\/p>\n

According to SpaceX\u2019s IPO filing<\/a>, Shotwell\u2019s total compensation last year reached $85.8 million, mostly from options awards (her base salary was $1.08 million). SpaceX provides security for her home, and she\u2019s the fifth-largest owner of Class A shares. While Musk is poised to become the world\u2019s first trillionaire thanks to today\u2019s IPO, Shotwell will also benefit mightily. <\/p>\n

Today\u2019s valuation makes SpaceX the world\u2019s seventh most-valuable company, per CNBC<\/a>. That\u2019s well ahead of Tesla\u2014and Shotwell made headlines with a CNBC interview that aired today in which she said she wouldn\u2019t rule out a merger<\/a> with Tesla<\/a> (SpaceX already merged with Musk\u2019s AI business xAI.)<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, she told<\/a> Time that she was \u201cexcited\u201d about a \u201cnew set of methodologies to run companies,\u201d referring to becoming a public company. In today\u2019s interview, she laid out what public company responsibilities might look like for a business whose goals are not just long-term, but multi-planetary. \u201cI do not want to focus on quarterly earnings,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m not saying we\u2019re not going to do right by our investors, but what folks who invest in SpaceX need to know is that what we\u2019re doing is very futuristic.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s for sure. And while Musk thinks about those \u201cfuturistic\u201d plans (He gets 1 billion performance-based shares after meeting milestones that include the establishment of a permanent colony of at least 1 million humans on Mars), Shotwell is making them happen\u2014now with even more scrutiny. <\/p>\n

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com<\/a><\/p>\n

The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune\u2019s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Subscribe here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES<\/p>\n

Victoria’s Secret wins a battle in the activist war.\u00a0Shareholders reelected all nine of the company’s board directors<\/a>, including board chair Donna James. Activist BBRC had waged a campaign to oust board veteran James, arguing the stock had underperformed thanks to “ineffective oversight.” The company points out<\/a> that excluding BBRC, James earned 99% approval from other investors. And BBRC voted against all of the company’s director nominees\u2014except CEO Hillary Super<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Taylor Swift is the youngest woman inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.\u00a0In an emotional speech, she talked about the meaning of songwriting as part of her career. “I had to be taught how to entertain the crowd and learn choreography, and be less annoying, and navigate the industry, and fiercely protect my own sanity. I had to learn all of that over time through difficult lessons, and massive amounts of trial and error, and chaos, and calamity,” she said<\/a>. “The songwriting, for me, is pretty much the only thing I ever just naturally did.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

What happened to Kathy Ruemmler?\u00a0A\u00a0NYT\u00a0Opinion piece explores how a former top lawyer in the Obama administration “got tangled up with Epstein”\u2014and had to leave her high-powered job as Goldman Sachs’ top attorney. Ruemmler contacted writer and attorney Ankush Khardori to ask if he’d like to hear her side of the story. After extensive conversations, he concludes<\/a> that her relationship with Epstein is most damning about the “unreliable and corroded” nature of the world of Big Law.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meet one of the top women in Big Oil.\u00a0My colleague Sheryl Estrada (author of Fortune’s CFO Daily newsletter<\/a>) catches up with Chevron CFO Eimear Bonner<\/a>. Bonner tells her about Chevron’s use of AI\u2014including including ApEX, a proprietary AI tool designed to improve how Chevron discovers oil and gas resources.\u00a0<\/p>\n

ON MY RADAR<\/p>\n

My AI boyfriend\u00a0Yale Review<\/a><\/p>\n

The influencer-ification of the bridal party\u00a0The Cut<\/a><\/p>\n

Chase Infiniti on hiding One Battle After Another role from The Testaments co-stars and becoming Elisabeth Moss\u2019 daughter for Gilead\u2019s teen-girl wasteland\u00a0Variety<\/a><\/p>\n

PARTING WORDS<\/p>\n

“I want to change that, not to beat anyone, but to make sure women are on the map. To put a mark down that says, ‘We were here, we did this, and we did it while being very much not quiet.'”<\/p>\n

\u2014 Stephanie Case, who is the first woman to attempt a 100-mile ultra-marathon<\/a> in Antarctica (!)\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today, SpaceX broke an all-time record with the largest IPO in history. With 555.6 million shares priced at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[2046,516,51595,111956,111,139,26542,69,147,392,1503],"class_list":["post-474190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-career","tag-elon-musk","tag-most-powerful-women","tag-mpw-daily","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-no-copyright","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space","tag-spacex"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}