SpaceX’s first employee brought his expertise in building experimental rockets and a master’s in mechanical engineering when he joined the Elon Musk-led rocket maker in 2002. Although not as famous as the world’s richest man, Tom Mueller is now also recognised as a co-founder of SpaceX, not just its founding employee. Even as his net worth is far from Musk’s near-trillionaire status, Mueller is now a billionaire himself and at the helm of Impulse Space, a startup he founded in 2021, which has since risen to a valuation of $4.26 billion.
Mueller’s Redondo Beach-based aerospace company attained that milestone only earlier this week after raising $500 million in Series D funding. As the CEO, CTO, and founder of the company on the rise, the one-time SpaceX star employee is now focused on accelerating Impulse Space’s in-space mobility infrastructure. And yet, he still has only good things to say about SpaceX, which he retired from in 2020 to found his own company, and its top boss, Elon Musk, whom he first met in Los Angeles in the early 2000s through a mutual friend, according to CNBC.
After his startup’s recent $500 million funding round, Tom Mueller gave Sourcery a walkthrough of Impulse Space’s Redondo Beach factory. During the insightful interview released on June 4, the SpaceX founding employee also reflected on his time at his former workplace, which is targeting a $1.75 trillion valuation with its upcoming stock market debut expected for June 12.
Space’s 1st employee hails company’s ‘hockey stick’ rise
When asked what he thought about the meteoric rise of SpaceX and its satellite network delivering high-speed internet almost anywhere on the planet, the Impulse Space founder couldn’t help but beam with pride at having been part of the company himself.
“When we first designed Starlink, we had spreadsheets, and we’re looking at the return on investment (ROI) and going, ‘We need to make and fly as many as we can,'” he told Sourcery. “We all saw it. It was really funny to see all the naysayers online saying, ‘There’s no way… they’re going to crash.’ And we’re looking at it going the other way… Make them as fast as you can launch them. This is going to hockey stick this stock, which it exactly did.”
Ahead of the SpaceX IPO this month, Elon Musk’s tech giant set a fixed price of $135 per share, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday (US time). The company plans to sell 555.6 million shares, which would bring the amount to a $75 billion fundraise.
Musk’s own $100 million seed funding and contributions from Craft Ventures and Founders Fund helped establish SpaceX in 2002. Cut to 2026, the company’s forthcoming Initial Public Offering (IPO) is now poised to be the largest stock market debut.
Why did Tom Mueller leave SpaceX?
As the founding employee of the company, Mueller was the driving force behind the propulsion systems for SpaceX’s Falcon and Dragon, in addition to setting the foundation for what eventually became Starship.
Speaking to Sourcery, Mueller touted the Merlin engine, which still flies on Falcon 9, as his “proudest development.” Before leaving SpaceX, he worked on the Starship project for six years. As he finally called it quits, he was already planning the “next big opportunity,” which he believed was moving payloads and cargo around once they’re in orbit.
Thus began the journey of Impulse Space to facilitate “in-space transportation,” as opposed to Earth-to-space transportation, which SpaceX is already handling. Mueller also admitted that he is “all about the moon,” and his company is chalking up plans to land on the moon soon.
Mueller even let out a chuckle when asked how he would handle Elon Musk’s “Elon-ness.” Ultimately, he praised the SpaceX boss, saying, “Elon’s great to work with. Generally, he just energises you. He’s got this infectious enthusiasm and gets you hyped up to do crazy stuff, and we do. It’s all about urgency and getting it done.”
Backing Musk for getting the “best out of everybody,” Mueller attributed the SpaceX CEO’s qualities as the reason the company is doing so well. “He’s also really good at finding and recruiting talent,” the Impulse Space boss added about Musk. “The key to success is having a great team.”
The space startup’s leader also credited his learnings at SpaceX, noting that his and Musk’s companies are like-minded, especially since Impulse Space also shares the same mottos: “vertically integrated, hire the best and move fast.”
