NASA plays nicely with privately owned SpaceX, but is that something to be concerned about? In an interview with NPR, NASA director Bill Nelson assuages any fears of an unsupervised Elon Musk running a space agency by reminding us that SpaceX is actually run by its president Gwynne Shotwell. Nelson trusts Shotwell to protect SpaceX from Elon Musk’s often irrational fever dreams, and thus to protect the billions of American tax dollars granted to SpaceX in government contracts from his wayward spending, too.
Nelson, a former Florida senator, was reportedly very outspoken in his distrust of Musk prior to assuming the role of NASA director. According to former NASA deputy director Lori Garver’s book, Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age, Garver says that Nelson “led the opposition” to SpaceX when he was still a senator. His opposition was primarily aimed at Musk’s eccentric ways and volatile behavior as the lead of a company that could potentially have global impact. According to Futurism,
”Elon Musk’s decision-making has come under a lot of scrutiny in recent years when it comes to some of his other companies, Twitter and Tesla,” interviewer Scott Detrow asked. “Are you concerned that so much of this plan is in the hands of Elon Musk at this point in time?”
“Elon Musk… one of the most important decisions he made, as a matter of fact, is he picked a president named Gwynne Shotwell,” Nelson demurred. “She runs SpaceX. She is excellent. And so I have no concerns.”
This isn’t the first time the NASA director and former Florida senator has expressed similar sentiments.
A few months after Musk bought Twitter — though before he disastrously renamed it “X” — in late 2022, Nelson recounted to NBC News his relief when discussing the acquisition with the SpaceX president.
“Tell me that the distraction that Elon might have on Twitter is not going to affect SpaceX,” Nelson recalled querying Shotwell.
In response, she apparently told him that it hadn’t harmed the spaceflight company and that he had “nothing to worry about.”
“I hugged her with a smile on my face, because I know she is running that thing,” the NASA director continued. “She’s running SpaceX.”
Shotwell currently manages all operations of SpaceX. She has been a SpaceX employee since 2002, and prior to that was space systems director at Microcosm, a spacecraft developer. She was on Fortune Magazine’s World’s 50 Greatest Leaders list in 2018 and Forbes’ list of Power Women in 2017, and has earned medals and awards for her achievements in the world of aeronautics. Knowing that a woman of such intelligence and fortitude is at the helm of SpaceX brings Nelson and many other folks (including this writer) some comfort and ease of mind.