Here is what Musk built, its the whole team that built the Starship, Claude:
Who Actually Builds SpaceX's Starship?
Elon Musk gets the headlines, but Starship, the largest rocket ever flown, is built by a deep and long-serving engineering organization. Here is who runs it, based on public reporting.
The man at the top. Musk is more than SpaceX's CEO. Fortune describes him as the company's chief designer, lead systems engineer, and singular decision-making authority. The big architectural calls are his.
The engineering leaders under him:
• Mark Juncosa, VP of Vehicle Engineering. Juncosa joined in 2005 and has held his current role since 2015. He also helps Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president, oversee day-to-day operations at Starbase, the Texas site where Starship is built and launched.
• Bill Riley, VP of Starship Engineering. A former Ford and GM engineer, Riley joined in 2010, rose through structures engineering, and has led Starship engineering since March 2020.
• Joe Petrzelka, Booster Engineering. Petrzelka has an MIT PhD and joined in 2012. He moved through Falcon and Dragon work before taking responsibility for Super Heavy, Starship's giant first stage.
• Jacob McKenzie, VP of Raptor. McKenzie joined in 2015 as a propulsion engineer and has led development of Raptor, Starship's engine, since July 2022.
• Charles Kuehmann, VP of Materials. Kuehmann's team develops the advanced alloys and composites that make reusable rockets possible. He holds the same job at Tesla.
• Phil Alden and Derek Turner, production. Alden came from a decade at BMW and Jaguar Land Rover and now runs Starship production. Turner oversees manufacturing across all SpaceX vehicles.
• Bill Gerstenmaier, VP of Build and Flight Reliability. For fourteen years he ran NASA's human spaceflight program. At SpaceX he leads quality engineering and launch readiness.
What stands out. Most of these leaders have been at SpaceX ten to twenty years and were promoted from within. The production side deliberately borrows from the car industry, which suits a goal of building rockets in volume.
The open questions.
• How big is the Starship team? Nobody publicly says. SpaceX as a whole has about 22,000 full-time employees, but no Starship-specific figure is public.
• How concentrated is the decision-making? The leadership below Musk is deep, but he holds the final technical say.
• Is attention being pulled elsewhere? After SpaceX absorbed Musk's AI company xAI in February 2026, several of the executives who built the launch business took on xAI oversight too.
The test ahead. The first flight of the newest Starship version lost its booster after an engine burn failed to start properly. Flight 14, scheduled for September 22, will try to reach orbit for the first time.
Summary
Starship is often pictured as Elon Musk's personal project, but the program runs on a seasoned engineering bench. Below Musk sit vice presidents with long tenure and clearly divided jobs. Mark Juncosa has led vehicle engineering since 2015. Bill Riley has run Starship engineering since 2020. Joe Petrzelka handles the booster, Jacob McKenzie the Raptor engine, and Charles Kuehmann materials. Phil Alden and Derek Turner run manufacturing, and Bill Gerstenmaier, formerly NASA's top human-spaceflight official, oversees reliability.
Most of these leaders joined SpaceX between 2005 and 2015 and worked their way up through structures, propulsion, or production roles. That kind of internal promotion builds people who share a common engineering standard. Recruits from BMW and Jaguar Land Rover bring an automotive approach to building rockets at scale.
Three caveats apply. First, the organization below the vice-president level isn't publicly visible, and SpaceX doesn't report how many people work on Starship. Second, authority is concentrated: Musk is the final technical decision-maker, so the team mostly carries out his design direction. Third, since SpaceX merged with xAI in early 2026, some senior leaders have split their attention between rockets and AI.
The real measure of depth is performance under pressure. The newest Starship's first flight lost its booster, and the next attempt, on September 22, aims for orbit. Whether the program keeps its pace through setbacks and distractions will say more about the team than any org chart.
Of course, all true, but Musk had the fortitude to pull it all together into a cohesive organization. I mean Einstein and Schrodinger made great leaps but it was also on the backs of hundreds of other physicists' work.
In the older movies from the 30s and 40s the screen credits were limited to very brief intros for the main cast and producers/directors. Now we can sit through ten minutes of credits from the makeup assistant to the food caterers to second in command of walking the stars dogs during production. I get it, it takes a village, but even with all those highlighted personnel it's easier to remember the main stars and execs.
Amazing, what Musk has done with SpaceX is astounding. Thanks for the great article!
Here is what Musk built, its the whole team that built the Starship, Claude:
Who Actually Builds SpaceX's Starship?
Elon Musk gets the headlines, but Starship, the largest rocket ever flown, is built by a deep and long-serving engineering organization. Here is who runs it, based on public reporting.
The man at the top. Musk is more than SpaceX's CEO. Fortune describes him as the company's chief designer, lead systems engineer, and singular decision-making authority. The big architectural calls are his.
The engineering leaders under him:
• Mark Juncosa, VP of Vehicle Engineering. Juncosa joined in 2005 and has held his current role since 2015. He also helps Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president, oversee day-to-day operations at Starbase, the Texas site where Starship is built and launched.
• Bill Riley, VP of Starship Engineering. A former Ford and GM engineer, Riley joined in 2010, rose through structures engineering, and has led Starship engineering since March 2020.
• Joe Petrzelka, Booster Engineering. Petrzelka has an MIT PhD and joined in 2012. He moved through Falcon and Dragon work before taking responsibility for Super Heavy, Starship's giant first stage.
• Jacob McKenzie, VP of Raptor. McKenzie joined in 2015 as a propulsion engineer and has led development of Raptor, Starship's engine, since July 2022.
• Charles Kuehmann, VP of Materials. Kuehmann's team develops the advanced alloys and composites that make reusable rockets possible. He holds the same job at Tesla.
• Phil Alden and Derek Turner, production. Alden came from a decade at BMW and Jaguar Land Rover and now runs Starship production. Turner oversees manufacturing across all SpaceX vehicles.
• Bill Gerstenmaier, VP of Build and Flight Reliability. For fourteen years he ran NASA's human spaceflight program. At SpaceX he leads quality engineering and launch readiness.
What stands out. Most of these leaders have been at SpaceX ten to twenty years and were promoted from within. The production side deliberately borrows from the car industry, which suits a goal of building rockets in volume.
The open questions.
• How big is the Starship team? Nobody publicly says. SpaceX as a whole has about 22,000 full-time employees, but no Starship-specific figure is public.
• How concentrated is the decision-making? The leadership below Musk is deep, but he holds the final technical say.
• Is attention being pulled elsewhere? After SpaceX absorbed Musk's AI company xAI in February 2026, several of the executives who built the launch business took on xAI oversight too.
The test ahead. The first flight of the newest Starship version lost its booster after an engine burn failed to start properly. Flight 14, scheduled for September 22, will try to reach orbit for the first time.
Summary
Starship is often pictured as Elon Musk's personal project, but the program runs on a seasoned engineering bench. Below Musk sit vice presidents with long tenure and clearly divided jobs. Mark Juncosa has led vehicle engineering since 2015. Bill Riley has run Starship engineering since 2020. Joe Petrzelka handles the booster, Jacob McKenzie the Raptor engine, and Charles Kuehmann materials. Phil Alden and Derek Turner run manufacturing, and Bill Gerstenmaier, formerly NASA's top human-spaceflight official, oversees reliability.
Most of these leaders joined SpaceX between 2005 and 2015 and worked their way up through structures, propulsion, or production roles. That kind of internal promotion builds people who share a common engineering standard. Recruits from BMW and Jaguar Land Rover bring an automotive approach to building rockets at scale.
Three caveats apply. First, the organization below the vice-president level isn't publicly visible, and SpaceX doesn't report how many people work on Starship. Second, authority is concentrated: Musk is the final technical decision-maker, so the team mostly carries out his design direction. Third, since SpaceX merged with xAI in early 2026, some senior leaders have split their attention between rockets and AI.
The real measure of depth is performance under pressure. The newest Starship's first flight lost its booster, and the next attempt, on September 22, aims for orbit. Whether the program keeps its pace through setbacks and distractions will say more about the team than any org chart.
Of course, all true, but Musk had the fortitude to pull it all together into a cohesive organization. I mean Einstein and Schrodinger made great leaps but it was also on the backs of hundreds of other physicists' work.
In the older movies from the 30s and 40s the screen credits were limited to very brief intros for the main cast and producers/directors. Now we can sit through ten minutes of credits from the makeup assistant to the food caterers to second in command of walking the stars dogs during production. I get it, it takes a village, but even with all those highlighted personnel it's easier to remember the main stars and execs.
The fact that version 3 of the Raptor has a 1 on it makes it crystal clear that the thing is beyond my comprehension.