Blue Origin, the space company owned by Jeff Bezos, yields about 10 % of its workforce, according to an email sent to staff on Thursday and aired by the New York Times.
The cuts, which could affect about 1,000 roles, follow several years of rapid growth and the successful launch last month of New Glenn, the company’s massive reusable rocket.
Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp told the email that the company had become inflated and that the cuts would be in mechanical, research and development, project management and general management strata.
He added that Blue Origin leaders had found that their priority for 2025 and Beyond was “to scale our production production and start pace with speed, determination and efficiency for our customers”.
Blue Origin does not reveal how many employees it has, but its workforce is widely estimated to be more than 10,000 people.
Mr. Bezos, the founder of Amazon, threw billions into blue origin. He has long described a vision of establishing human colonies in space and said that the reduction in the cost of launching the load in space was crucial. But his company is delayed behind the development of Elon Musk’s private space company SpaceX.
At the end of 2023, Mr Bezos hired Mr Limp, a former Amazon executive, to run blue origin and instill with a sense of urgency. The company, Flush with money by Mr Bezos, was in a constant research and development cycle, said Chad Anderson, a starter investor at Space Capital.
“When you have an unlimited amount of money, you do not have the same sense of lack and necessity,” Mr Anderson said.
Employees had supported redundancies for some time. Late on Wednesday, they received an invitation for a virtual meeting at 7am. on Thursday. At the eight -minute summit, Mr Limp announced the cuts. At 7:10, there was an email that confirms the redundancies.
Mr Limp told the email that the company would “hire hundreds of seats”.
During a commercial space conference in Washington on Wednesday, DC, Mr Limp was optimistic about blue origin and did not indicate that he was going to say goodbye to one in 10 employees.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we have made great progress in the past year in the fundamental authorities and are acting quickly and turning us into a world -class production company,” Mr Limp said. “I think we have made some progress. We have a lot to do this year too.”
The be-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-engine manufacturing rate for Blue Origin’s new Glenn Rocket and Vulcan Rocket built by United Launch Alliance-has been accelerated in about a week. “And by the way, this will double or triple the next 12 to 18 months,” he added.
Blue Origin is on the right track to launch a ground on the moon this year, Mr Limp said. Although this will only carry a load, not people, it will try technologies that will be used for a larger Lander that develops blue origin for the NASA and Artemis program.
“We have hit all our landmarks,” Mr Limp said. “We are still on track, they are subject to the Artemis program.”
Mr Limp said that even this smaller Lander would be larger than anything else that had landed on the moon, including the Landers used by NASA astronauts during the Apollo program.
Mr Limp was also inflated in Trump’s space plans, even if these space designs are not yet clear. “The increased focus on the exact month of this administration is great to see,” he said. “We are obviously huge fans.”
Even if NASA revolves its attention from the moon to Mars – Mr Musk’s preferred destination – Blue Origin’s technologies will be suitable for this longer journey. “You can treat them a little like LEGO bricks,” Mr Limp said. “It turns out to be a manned mission to Mars or a cargo mission to Mars reuse the overwhelming majority of them.”
