SpaceX chief operating officer shares 3 visions for the company’s future

While SpaceX founder Elon Musk may have her heart set on one day living on another planet, the company’s chief operating officer says she currently plans to keep everything on Earth.

“I think Elon wants to retire on Mars. I’m not interested in Mars,” SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell told Baron Capital founder Ron Baron at his company’s headquarters Annual Investment Conference last week. “I don’t like camping, and I think it will be a long time before Mars is good enough – probably not in my lifetime.”

Still, like her boss, Shotwell’s vision for SpaceX remains high: making space travel accessible to all, global access to satellite internet, and eventually interstellar travel and life.

The company’s growth trajectory also has investors seeing stars. Unlike Tesla, SpaceX does not trade as public stock and therefore does not need to release financial results. But Baron assured his investors – who can own shares of SpaceX through some of the company’s mutual funds – that it was a profitable investment.

“We’ve made seven times our money since we started investing in 2017,” Barron said, adding that he expects their share price to triple in the next five years.

That doesn’t mean the company has a perfect track record. SpaceX’s financial results Has reportedly had its ups and downs over the yearsthis week, a much-publicized test launch Didn’t go exactly as planned.

Still, Barron and Full House shareholders want to hear what Shotwell has to say about the future of her company. She expected three things to happen.

1. Affordable space travel

SpaceX’s latest innovation is the company’s ability to “capture” and relaunch rockets, a paradigm shift that Shotwell said could ultimately significantly reduce the cost of getting into space.

“What we hope to do with the work we’re doing is getting ordinary people into space,” she said.

While Shotwell isn’t considering any Mars real estate, she said bringing people to Mars and beyond is part of the company’s long-term plan.

“We want people to fly to other planets, to go to the moon, and hopefully — maybe not this century, maybe, hopefully next century — our great-grandchildren will be able to fly to other planets outside of our solar system,” she said.

2. Opportunities for growth…and competition

Meanwhile, SpaceX still has a lot of work to do back on Earth. The company has launched more than 100 reusable Falcon rockets this year – The next closest competitor has been in orbit about a dozen times.

SpaceX’s Starlink network has about 7,000 satellites in orbit and currently serves about 5 million customers.

Shotwell said the numbers illustrate the huge potential for growth. “There are nearly 8 billion people on the planet, and we serve less than 5 million,” she said. “The market is huge.”

When Baron pointed out that about 30% of those 8 billion people don’t have access to broadband, Shotwell said that while she hopes SpaceX can provide service to everyone, she expects there will be stiff competition – and that’s not a bad thing. .

“I hope others can catch up, right? Competition is good for the industry…it keeps us on edge; it keeps us very focused,” she said.

3. Reshape regulation

Shotwell said one thing is holding SpaceX and other tech companies back from expanding as fast as they want: regulation.

“Technology is easy. Physics is easy. People are hard,” she said. “And regulators are the hardest.”

Of course, Shotwell acknowledged that government regulations are intended to protect workers and consumers and keep the industry fair, but he still expressed frustration with the speed and complexity of government regulations.

“I think everyone in all industries is starting to realize that regulations really need to be reworked… I probably spend more than half my time looking at regulatory issues, and I’d love to spend that time meeting with my welders and people building Starlink and Starship,” she said.

As one viewer pointed out, Shotwell’s boss has been appointed to lead a new agency aimed at making government more efficient. She did not say whether she thought the current regulatory framework would change, but said she hoped the new government would cut some of the red tape she said was holding back the industry.

“Certainly hopefully we can work out together how to make regulators more efficient and, frankly, better. Not just faster, but better.”

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