Gwynne is on the cover of Time (which of course isn’t as big a deal as it used to be). With the largest IPO in history, we may have reached a cultural point at which, like Cher, she’s just “Gwynne.”
SPACEX: Condensed Gwynne Shotwell TIME interview. The full interview is really good. I suggest you read it. But if you do not have time, here you go:
— S.E. Robinson, Jr. (@SERobinsonJr) March 26, 2026
– Merger with xAI: Happened quickly; xAI will largely operate as its own entity with integration over time. Shotwell’s role will… https://t.co/dCRKZ0oY0Q pic.twitter.com/xjIugaNZ5P
As the ol’ TV series paraphrased: Have rocket factory, will travel.
A real-life “sidekick” as good as the fictional Andamo from ‘Mr. Lucky’ and Artemus Gordon from ‘The Wild Wild West’ – both played by the late, great Ross Martin.
I first met Gwynne at the first FAA Commercial Space Transportation Forecast Conference if February 1998, at the Key Bridge Marriott Hotel in Arlington. She was Gwynne Gurevich at the time, and worked for Aerospace Corporation. They had sent her to the conference to gather intel on the entrepreneurial space people, and I was one of the foremost at the time. So one night, we sat in a glassed-in semi-private booth in the bar, and talked until they closed the place down, and made us leave. The space talk didn’t occupy the whole evening. We also talked about our kids, and the movie “Titanic”, which had come out the year before. I was impressed with her intelligence, but would never have predicted her epoch-making career. She has accomplished more than most of us even imagined possible in the advancement of space transportation, and in the process validated our convictions on commercial operation, reusability, and constant innovation. I’m glad they gave her such good treatment – it’s unusual in this DEI world, but I think speaks volumes about the fact that you can’t argue with success.