Hello, this is Hamamoto from TIMEWELL. Today, rather than walking through a specific service, I want to share a story focused on the new technologies shaping the future — and, even more importantly, the people creating them.
Elon Musk. Most people hear that name and immediately think of Tesla, which paved the way for the future of electric vehicles; SpaceX, which opened the doors of space to private enterprise; or perhaps xAI, his AI company that has been making waves lately. But there is a perspective gaining traction that his greatest contribution to society may not be these revolutionary companies themselves — it may actually be that he has "nurtured two generations of entrepreneurs."
Once, the colleagues who built the online payments giant PayPal together went on to found world-changing companies like YouTube, LinkedIn, and Yelp, becoming legends in Silicon Valley as the "PayPal Mafia." And now, history is on the verge of repeating itself. Alumni who emerged from Elon Musk's SpaceX are quietly but surely forming a new "mafia" — the SpaceX Mafia — pushing the world toward its next stage.
The startups they have founded already number over 140, with total fundraising surpassing one trillion yen [1]. This is not merely a string of spinoffs. It is the beginning of a sweeping challenge to rewrite the rules of the giant industries — space, AI, energy, manufacturing — that underpin the foundations of nations. In this article, I will unpack the SpaceX Mafia in as accessible a way as possible — avoiding jargon and sharing the excitement — through specific companies and their remarkable businesses.
Why Does SpaceX Produce Extraordinary People?
147+ companies, over $11.2 billion (approximately ¥1.7 trillion) in fundraising, and more than 7,700 new jobs created [1]. This is the latest snapshot of the economic ecosystem created by SpaceX alumni. Why does a single company produce so many, and such powerful, entrepreneurs? The answer lies in the fact that SpaceX is not merely a "rocket factory" — it is also a "factory for producing extraordinary people," one that breaks common sense and makes the impossible possible.
What alumni consistently describe is SpaceX's uniquely exceptional corporate culture. It is built on four main elements.
1. Extreme Ownership At SpaceX, engineers are not just cogs in a machine. For the components and systems they are responsible for — from design through manufacturing, testing, and the success of a launch — they bear literal total responsibility. "That's not my job" does not exist; going beyond your area of expertise to solve a problem is simply the norm. This experience builds the mental toughness to take on every challenge that faces a company as its founder [2].
2. First-Principles Thinking "Of course rockets are expensive" — Elon Musk shattered this industry assumption with the conviction that "as long as it doesn't violate the laws of physics, it should be achievable." That is first-principles thinking. SpaceX employees are drilled to question existing methods and conventional wisdom, tracing things back to their essence and constantly asking "Is it really impossible?" This way of thinking is the wellspring of genuinely innovative ideas that no one else had considered.
3. Taking On "Hardware is Hard" Unlike software startups, hardware development — creating physical things — involves massive upfront investment, long development cycles, and complex supply chains. SpaceX achieved remarkable speed and low cost in the most difficult domain of all: aerospace. The know-how cultivated there, for rapidly turning complex hardware into reality, translates into overwhelming competitive advantage in other manufacturing and energy industries as well [3].
4. Speed and Urgency "Move fast and break things" is a Silicon Valley motto, but SpaceX executes at a speed that far surpasses it. Design an engine in weeks, test a prototype in months. This ferocious development cycle emerges from a culture of constant urgency — rather than waiting for perfection, build it and try it. This experience enables rapid market launch and improvement cycles in the early stages of a startup.
That people forged in this demanding environment seek a new arena of challenge after leaving may, in a sense, be inevitable. Armed with the philosophy and methodology they learned at SpaceX, they are now becoming leaders themselves — standard-bearers of a new industrial revolution.
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10 SpaceX Mafia Companies to Watch
So what kinds of companies are actually being born? From the 140+ candidates, here are 10 especially noteworthy ones with the potential to have major impact on our future.
1. Relativity Space: A 3D Printing Revolution That "Prints" Rockets
| Company | Relativity Space |
|---|---|
| Founders | Tim Ellis, Jordan Noone (former SpaceX engineers) |
| Business | Rocket manufacturing using the world's largest metal 3D printer |
| Raised | ~$1.9 billion [4] |
First up is Relativity Space. They are working to literally overturn the conventional wisdom of rocket manufacturing from the ground up. While conventional rockets consist of hundreds of thousands of parts, Relativity is developing a rocket called "Terran" using their giant 3D printer "Stargate" — with a parts count reduced to less than 1/100th. This dramatically shortens manufacturing time and aims for a major cost reduction. It is an attempt to effectively turn the rocket factory itself into software — with the potential to further democratize access to space.
2. Varda Space Industries: Creating New Drugs and Materials in a Space Factory
| Company | Varda Space Industries |
|---|---|
| Founder | Will Bruey (former SpaceX spacecraft operator) |
| Business | Manufacturing materials in space using the microgravity environment |
| Raised | ~$329 million [2] |
Manufacturing high-quality-crystal-structure pharmaceuticals and next-generation fiber optic cables — materials difficult to make on Earth due to the effects of gravity — in the weightlessness of space, then bringing them back to Earth. It sounds like a science fiction film, but Varda is pursuing exactly this in earnest. They have already succeeded in crystallizing pharmaceuticals in space and returning the capsule to Earth [5]. If this technology matures, the impact on pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and telecommunications will be incalculable.
3. Radiant Nuclear: A Portable Nuclear Reactor You Can Take Anywhere
| Company | Radiant Nuclear |
|---|---|
| Founder | Doug Bernauer (former SpaceX engineer) |
| Business | Development of a portable micro-modular reactor |
| Raised | ~$525 million [4] |
The words "nuclear energy" may call to mind large-scale power plants and safety concerns. Radiant overturns that image entirely. Their portable reactor "Kaleidos" is small enough to fit in a shipping container and can be mass-produced at a factory — a genuinely remarkable approach to the problem. It aims for a future in which clean, stable power can be delivered anywhere: disaster areas, data centers, and even future lunar bases. Former SpaceX engineers are applying the know-how cultivated through Mars colonization planning to Earth's energy challenges [6].
4. Ursa Major: Working Toward "Off-the-Shelf" Rocket Engines
| Company | Ursa Major |
|---|---|
| Founder | Joe Laurienti (former SpaceX propulsion engineer) |
| Business | Development and manufacturing of general-purpose rocket engines |
| Raised | ~$434 million [4] |
Until now, in-house development of the engine — the heart of any rocket — has been the most difficult and costly barrier for companies entering rocket development. Ursa Major is working to build an environment where new entrants can develop rockets more quickly and at lower cost, by developing and selling high-performance rocket engines as "standard components." This plays an important role in promoting horizontal division of labor in the space industry and accelerating innovation — analogous to how Intel provided CPUs in the PC world [7].
5. Hermeus: A Hypersonic Passenger Aircraft Flying at Mach 5
| Company | Hermeus |
|---|---|
| Founders | AJ Piplica, Skyler Shuford (alumni from SpaceX, Blue Origin, and others) |
| Business | Development of hypersonic aircraft flying at Mach 5 (~6,100 km/h) |
| Raised | ~$239 million [4] |
"Tokyo to New York in just two hours." Hard to believe, but Hermeus is seriously pursuing a hypersonic passenger aircraft to make this dream a reality. They have developed their own hybrid engine called "Chimera," combining existing jet engines with a ramjet — and have already succeeded in testing a prototype. The plan is to commercialize unmanned aircraft first, with the eventual goal of rewriting the rules of commercial aviation [8].
6. Machina Labs: AI and Robots Reshaping the Future of Manufacturing
| Company | Machina Labs |
|---|---|
| Founder | Edward Mehr (formerly SpaceX, Google) |
| Business | AI-powered robotic metal forming platform |
| Raised | ~$169 million [4] |
Without large molds or presses, two robotic arms follow AI instructions to freely form metal sheets — "Robotic Blacksmithing," as Machina Labs calls it, has the potential to fundamentally change manufacturing. Prototype fabrication and small-lot mixed-variety production become possible at unprecedented speed and low cost, accelerating innovation across industries from aerospace to automotive to construction [9].
7. Parallel Systems: Automating and Electrifying Freight Rail
| Company | Parallel Systems |
|---|---|
| Founder | Matt Soule (former SpaceX engineer) |
| Business | Development of autonomous, electrified freight rail vehicles |
| Raised | ~$100 million [4] |
Traditional rail transportation has been inefficient without long train formations. Parallel Systems is developing a platform where individual vehicles run autonomously, enabling more flexible and efficient freight rail transport. The aim is to revive rail — a low-environmental-impact alternative — in logistics networks dominated by trucking, contributing to the decarbonization and efficiency of the entire supply chain [10].
8. Base Power: Rebuilding the Power Grid With Home Batteries
| Company | Base Power Company |
|---|---|
| Founders | Zach Dell (alumni from SpaceX, Anduril, and others) |
| Business | Home battery storage system and energy services |
| Raised | ~$1.3 billion [4] |
Reminiscent of Tesla's Powerwall — but Base Power goes a step further. Beyond simply installing large-capacity batteries in homes, the company bundles them virtually into a single massive power plant (VPP: Virtual Power Plant), contributing to the stabilization of the overall power grid. Amid deepening power shortages, this is an ambitious challenge to simultaneously achieve household-level energy self-sufficiency and more resilient social infrastructure [11].
9. AstroForge: Space Miners Extracting Resources from Asteroids
| Company | AstroForge |
|---|---|
| Founders | Matt Gialich, Jose Acain (alumni from SpaceX, Virgin Galactic) |
| Business | Asteroid resource mining (asteroid mining) |
| Raised | Undisclosed (launched 2025) |
Extracting rare metals like platinum — whose depletion on Earth is a concern — from asteroids, which are rich in resources. AstroForge is one of the few companies taking on this sweeping vision. They have already launched a probe and are executing asteroid exploration missions [12]. If successful, this will not only transform humanity's thinking about resource challenges, but will also be a major step toward establishing a space economy.
10. Quilter: AI Automatically Designing Electronic Circuits
| Company | Quilter |
|---|---|
| Founder | Sergiy Nesterenko (former SpaceX engineer) |
| Business | AI-powered automatic layout design for printed circuit boards (PCBs) |
| Raised | ~$38.4 million [4] |
Printed circuit boards are indispensable in all modern electronic devices. Their design still relies heavily on the manual work of highly specialized engineers. Quilter is developing a tool that fully automates this complex design process with AI. An engineer simply inputs a schematic, and the AI generates an optimal layout based on the laws of physics within minutes. This is expected to eliminate a major bottleneck in hardware development and dramatically accelerate development cycles [13].
Conclusion: True Innovation Comes From People
The companies introduced here are only a fraction of the innovations produced by the SpaceX Mafia. Their challenge extends far beyond the single domain of space exploration — reaching into every industry that underpins our lives: energy, manufacturing, AI, and healthcare.
The true value of what Elon Musk has achieved may lie not just in the "products" themselves — the reusable rocket, the appealing electric vehicle. Personally, I believe his greatest achievement was creating the "culture" of confronting difficult challenges head-on, questioning conventional wisdom, and turning the future into reality at extraordinary speed — and planting that passionate DNA into a large number of talented young people.
Just as the PayPal Mafia led the Web 2.0 revolution of the 2000s, the SpaceX Mafia will lead the coming "real world (physical world)" industrial revolution. The waves of innovation they are creating have only just begun. The next people to change the world may be the still-unseen "third generation" of entrepreneurs emerging from even further beyond the companies introduced in this article. After all, the seeds of future innovation have already been sown by their hands.
References
[1] Alumni Founders. (2026). SpaceX Alumni Founder Stats. https://www.alumnifounders.com/stats
[2] Weiss, G., & Hornstein, J. (2025, December 25). The SpaceX Mafia is here. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/meet-the-spacex-mafia-former-elon-musk-employees-raising-billions-2025-12
[3] Burke, J., & Madrid, M. (2022, November 18). The SpaceX Effect - Companies founded by SpaceX Alumni. Jeff's Newsletter. https://jeffburke.substack.com/p/the-spacex-effect-companies-founded
[4] Alumni Founders. (2026). SpaceX Alumni Founders Market Map. https://www.alumnifounders.com/industry-map
[5] TechCrunch. (2025, November 30). Varda says it has proven space manufacturing works, now it wants to make it 'boring'. https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/30/varda-says-it-has-proven-space-manufacturing-works-now-it-wants-to-make-it-boring/
[6] Radiant Nuclear. (2025, October 13). Radiant to Build First Portable Nuclear Generator Factory in Tennessee. https://www.radiantnuclear.com/blog/tennessee-factory/
[7] Ursa Major. (n.d.). About Us. https://ursamajor.com/about/
[8] Hermeus. (n.d.). AJ Piplica Bio. https://www.hermeus.com/aj-piplica
[9] Machina Labs. (n.d.). About. https://www.machinalabs.ai/about
[10] CNBC. (2022, January 19). Ex-SpaceX engineers design self-propelled, electric train cars to move freight. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/19/parallel-systems-ex-spacex-engineers-design-electric-train-cars.html
[11] Not Boring by Packy McCormick. (2024, May 7). Base Power Company. https://www.notboring.co/p/base-power-company
[12] CNN. (2025, February 25). This company is set to launch a scouting mission for asteroid mining. https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/25/science/astroforge-asteroid-mining-spacex-launch
[13] Forbes. (2025, October 7). This Former SpaceX Engineer Is Using AI To Design Circuit Boards. https://www.forbes.com/sites/the-prompt/2025/10/07/this-former-spacex-engineer-is-using-ai-to-design-circuit-boards/