Musk doesn't build alone — and that's a strength, not a gotcha. These are some of the exceptional engineers and operators who turn the vision into hardware.
President & Chief Operating Officer
Gwynne Shotwell (born 1963) is a mechanical engineer who joined SpaceX in 2002 as its eleventh employee. Promoted to President in 2008 after negotiating SpaceX's first NASA Commercial Resupply Services contract, she runs day-to-day operations and built the Falcon manifest into a business worth tens of billions. Holding degrees from Northwestern, she was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2020 and is widely credited as the operational engine behind SpaceX's commercial success.
Read profileFounding propulsion lead (former VP/CTO of Propulsion)
Tom Mueller is a rocket-engine designer often called SpaceX employee No. 1. Before SpaceX he built the world's largest amateur liquid-fuel engine in a garage, which drew Musk's attention. As VP and later CTO of Propulsion he led development of the Merlin engines for Falcon 1 and Falcon 9, the Draco and SuperDraco engines for Dragon, and helped seed the Raptor program. He retired in 2020 and founded Impulse Space.
Read profileCo-founder & former CTO
Jeffrey B. Straubel (born 1975) joined Tesla as its fifth employee in 2004 and is a named co-founder. As CTO for 15 years he led battery cell design, the supply chain, and the original Gigafactory concept through the Model 3 ramp, and is listed on many of Tesla’s battery patents. He now leads Redwood Materials, which he founded to recycle lithium-ion batteries, and rejoined Tesla’s board in 2023.
Read profileChief Designer
Franz von Holzhausen joined Tesla as chief designer in 2008 and has shaped nearly every production vehicle since: the Model S, Model X, Model 3, Model Y, Semi, and the Cybertruck, whose 2019 unveiling he led. An ArtCenter College of Design graduate, he previously worked at Volkswagen, General Motors and Mazda. At Tesla he oversees a studio of roughly 300 designers and is regarded as one of the most influential automotive designers of the EV era.
Read profilePrincipal Mars Landing Engineer (rocket landing/GNC)
Lars Blackmore is a British-American aerospace engineer who led the guidance, navigation and control work that made Falcon 9 boosters reusable. From 2011 to 2018 he was responsible for the rocket’s entry, descent and landing, and his team achieved the first controlled landing of an orbital-class booster in December 2015 — since followed by hundreds of landings. A Cambridge and MIT graduate, he now leads landing systems for Starship.
Read profileFormer VP of Build & Flight Reliability (4th employee)
Hans Koenigsmann (born 1963) is a German aerospace engineer who became SpaceX's fourth technical employee in 2002. He joined as VP of Avionics, later serving as Launch Chief Engineer and then VP of Flight Reliability, responsible for mission safety and failure investigations. He helped develop Falcon 1, Falcon 9, Dragon and Starlink, received NASA's Distinguished Public Service Medal in 2014, and retired in 2021.
Read profileFormer SVP of Powertrain & Energy Engineering
Drew Baglino joined Tesla in 2006 and spent 18 years there, rising to Senior Vice President of Powertrain and Energy Engineering in 2019. A Stanford graduate, he worked across motor, battery and power-electronics engineering and led Tesla Energy’s grid-scale battery products. He was a frequent presenter at Tesla’s Battery Day events, helping define the 4680 cell and energy-storage strategy, before departing in 2024.
Read profileCo-founder, President & COO
DJ Seo is a co-founder and the President and COO of Neuralink. He earned a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from UC Berkeley, where his research on 'neural dust' — tiny wireless sensors that interface with neural tissue — informed Neuralink's implant approach. Named to MIT Technology Review's Innovators Under 35, Seo leads implant development and the N1 implant and surgical-robot programs.
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