63. Raptor Shake-up

In Chap­ter 63 titled “Rap­tor Shake-up” set in SpaceX, 2021, Elon Musk is por­trayed as deeply involved and pas­sion­ate­ly hands-on in refin­ing the design and man­u­fac­tur­ing process of the Star­ship’s Rap­tor engine amidst headaches due to its com­plex­i­ty, cost, and pro­duc­tion dif­fi­cul­ties. Deter­mined to reduce expens­es and inef­fi­cien­cies, Musk insti­tutes night­ly meet­ings with the Rap­tor team, advo­cat­ing for sub­stan­tial use of stain­less steel over more expen­sive mate­ri­als and push­ing for aggres­sive sim­pli­fi­ca­tion and cost-cut­ting mea­sures. His mantra is to exper­i­ment rapid­ly, accept fail­ure as a step to quick learn­ing, and con­stant­ly strive for improve­ment.

Jacob McKen­zie, a young, excep­tion­al­ly tal­ent­ed engi­neer of Jamaican ori­gin and MIT grad­u­ate, emerges as a stand­out. Draw­ing on his back­ground in heavy engi­neer­ing and pre­vi­ous work on Star­ship’s flap actu­a­tors, McKen­zie impress­es Musk with his com­bi­na­tion of calm com­pe­tence and inno­v­a­tive approach to prob­lem-solv­ing. Musk, see­ing McKen­zie’s poten­tial and suc­cess in imple­ment­ing sig­nif­i­cant cost-sav­ing strate­gies, pro­motes him to lead the Rap­tor pro­gram. Under McKen­zie’s direc­tion, solu­tions akin to those used in auto­mo­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing are applied to rock­et engine pro­duc­tion, which results in sub­stan­tial cost reduc­tions and effi­cien­cy improve­ments.

Amid these devel­op­ments, Musk sug­gests the cre­ation of a new engine, dubbed 1337 (“LEET”), rep­re­sent­ing a rad­i­cal depar­ture from the cur­rent mod­el with the ambi­tious goal of sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er­ing costs and advanc­ing SpaceX’s mis­sion of mak­ing life mul­ti­plan­e­tary. This project encap­su­lates Musk’s approach of bold inno­va­tion and his dri­ve to push his team toward ground­break­ing solu­tions. The chap­ter cul­mi­nates with Musk redi­rect­ing focus back to enhanc­ing the exist­ing Rap­tor design to meet the pro­duc­tion rates nec­es­sary for SpaceX’s ambi­tious launch sched­ule, empha­siz­ing the relent­less pace and high stakes of their work.

Through the nar­ra­tive, Musk’s lead­er­ship style—characterized by direct involve­ment, chal­leng­ing tra­di­tion­al engi­neer­ing approach­es, and fos­ter­ing a cul­ture of rapid iter­a­tion and innovation—is vivid­ly por­trayed. McKen­zie’s ascen­dance to a lead­er­ship role under Musk’s tute­lage exem­pli­fies the nur­tur­ing of tal­ent and the blend­ing of engi­neer­ing excel­lence with prag­mat­ic, cost-effec­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­niques at SpaceX.