2026-06-11T20:25:15-0400 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻（CBS News）
作者：梅根·塞鲁洛 记者，MoneyWatch栏目
梅根·塞鲁洛是驻纽约的CBS MoneyWatch记者，报道小企业、职场、医疗保健、消费者支出和个人理财话题。她经常亮相CBS News 24/7节目讨论其报道内容。
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乔·凌·肯特 高级商业与科技通讯员
记者乔·凌·肯特于2023年7月加入哥伦比亚广播公司新闻，担任CBS News高级商业与科技通讯员。肯特拥有超过15年的报道经验，专注于美国科技与商业的交汇领域，以及中国作为全球经济强国的崛起。
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SpaceX的首位员工与埃隆·马斯克都对模型火箭抱有热情。
“我通过业余火箭俱乐部认识了埃隆，他说服我放弃当时的职业，来做一些令人兴奋的事，这是我做过的最棒的决定之一，”航空航天工程师汤姆·穆勒在接受CBS News高级商业与科技通讯员乔·凌·肯特采访时表示。
在这家太空探索公司历史性首次公开募股的前夜，穆勒还称赞了马斯克作为企业家和导师的能力，称这位SpaceX、特斯拉和xAI的亿万富翁创始人“慧眼识才，并且能激发优秀人才的潜能”。
穆勒也对自己2002年加入的SpaceX抱有信心，相信它将改变太空探索的历史。“我们坚信这一点，并且做到了。这真的太酷了，”他说。
穆勒是目前和此前拥有该公司股权的SpaceX员工之一，该公司将于本周五进行有史以来规模最大的首次公开募股。
“我们所有人都会在这次IPO中收获颇丰。我的意思是，我们已经做得很好了。SpaceX一直极为成功……这对所有员工都有利，我也一样，”他告诉CBS News。
至于马斯克——据彭博亿万富翁指数估计，他身家近7000亿美元，是全球首富——此次股票发行可能会让他成为全球首位万亿富翁。
“它成功了”
作为SpaceX推进研究主管的穆勒，帮助打造了为该公司猎鹰9号火箭提供动力的发动机。他表示，此次IPO是该公司成功的又一标志。
“埃隆真正想要的是找到一种低成本进入太空的方式，这后来成为了猎鹰9号……它成功了，”穆勒说。
穆勒后来离开了SpaceX，创立了Impulse Space，这家初创公司专注于太空载荷交付、卫星移动等服务。
他也是太空探索的坚定倡导者，指出太空探索给地球人类带来的衍生益处，比如GPS和更精准的天气预报。
“所以太空至关重要——比人们意识到的还要重要。我认为太空中有很多事情现在已经开始付诸实践，比如利用月球和小行星资源的轨道数据中心，”他说。“所以我认为从现在开始，太空领域将真正迎来腾飞。”
编辑：艾米丽·潘迪斯与阿兰·谢特尔
SpaceX’s first employee remains on mission: “Space is super important”
2026-06-11T20:25:15-0400 / CBS News
By Megan Cerullo Reporter, MoneyWatch
Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News 24/7 to discuss her reporting.
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Jo Ling Kent Senior Business and Technology Correspondent
Journalist Jo Ling Kent joined CBS News in July 2023 as the senior business and technology correspondent for CBS News. Kent has more than 15 years of experience covering the intersection of technology and business in the U.S., as well as the emergence of China as a global economic power.
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SpaceX’s first employee and Elon Musk shared an enthusiasm for model rockets.
“I met Elon through an amateur rocket club, and he convinced me to leave that career and come do something exciting, which was one of the best decisions I ever made,” aerospace engineer Tom Mueller told CBS News senior business and technology correspondent Jo Ling Kent.
On the eve of the space exploration company’s historic initial public offering, Mueller also praised Musk’s abilities as an entrepreneur and mentor, saying that the billionaire founder of SpaceX, Tesla and xAI “found good talent, and he energized good talent.”
Mueller also had faith that SpaceX, which he joined in 2002, would change the history of space exploration. “We believed it and we did it. So it was really cool,” he said.
Mueller is among the former and current SpaceX employees who own equity in the company, which is set to go public on Friday in the biggest-ever IPO.
“All of us are going to do great in this IPO. I mean, we’ve done great. SpaceX has been extremely successful. …it’s good for all the employees, and myself included,” he told CBS News.
As for Musk — the world’s richest person, with an estimated net worth of nearly $700 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index — the stock offering could make him the world’s first trillionaire.
“It worked”
Mueller, who as head of propulsion research at SpaceX helped build the engines that powered the company’s Falcon 9 rocket, said the IPO is another marker of the company’s success.
“Elon really wanted to make a low-cost way to get space, which became Falcon 9…and it worked,” Mueller said.
Mueller eventually left SpaceX and founded Impulse Space, a startup focused on delivering payloads in space and moving satellites, among other services.
He is also a steadfast evangelist for space exploration, noting the downstream benefits for people on Earth, such as GPS and more accurate weather forecasting.
“So space is super important — more than people realize. And I think there’s a lot of things that need to be done in space that are starting to happen now, like orbital data centers using the resources of the moon and asteroids,” he said. “So I think it’s just really going to take off from here.”
Edited by Emily Pandise and Alain Sherter
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