Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Thursday, May 1st.

Today on Forbes, from Elon Musk's assistant to SpaceX Investor, meet Alyssa Butterfield.

In 2016, when she was 25 years old, Alyssa Butterfield, a Los Angeles native working in the entertainment industry, accepted a new job

that would change her life. She went to work for Elon Musk. At the time, Musk was not the household

figure he is today. He was worth closer to $10 billion, or 38 times less than he is now.

For two years, as one of Musk's team of executive assistants,

Butterfield helped manage her Mercurial boss's calendar and ever-changing priorities,

from rescuing kids in a cave in Thailand to tunneling holes in Tesla's parking lot.

She coordinated calls with investors, moved around meetings, and juggled Musk's wide-ranging

portfolio, from Tesla and SpaceX duties to his eccentric extracurriculars and new ventures.

In 2018, she graduated to operational roles at both Tesla and SpaceX before leaving Musk's payroll

in 2022.

A former SpaceX employee says, quote,

I got the impression she was incredibly loyal and must have been incredibly effective.

Now, Butterfield is capitalizing on her experience and connections.

Since she joined Los Angeles-based venture capital firm Island Green

Capital Management in 2024, the firm has made investments in XAI and SpaceX, Musk's two

fastest growing companies. Island Green, founded in 2023 by former Goldman Sachs trader, Atit

Al-Lualia, was one of at least 61 investors

to participate in XAI's $6 billion investment round last May, which valued the startup at $24 billion,

according to Pitchbook. In January, Island Green bought a stake in SpaceX from an unknown seller, likely at a valuation

of around $350 billion, which the company hit last December in a $1.25 billion share sale.

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