Jeff Bezos’ aerospace company, Blue Origin, is laying off about 1,000 workers, according to media reports.
Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp announced the cuts in an internal email to employees, which was obtained by CNN and The New York Times, among other outlets.
Blue Origin does not disclose how many people it employs, but that number is thought to be around 10,000, according to The New York Times. The new layoffs therefore represent a roughly 10% cull.
“We grew and hired incredibly fast in the last few years, and with that growth came more bureaucracy and less focus than we needed,” the email reads, according to CNN. “It also became clear that the makeup of our organization must change to ensure our roles are best aligned with executing these priorities.”
According to the email, the cuts will be “in engineering, research and development, project management, and general managerial layers,” The New York Times reported.
Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000, two years before Elon Musk established SpaceX. The two billionaires have both said they want to help humanity extend its footprint out into the cosmos. Musk’s focus has long been on Mars, whereas Bezos has touted the potential of giant space stations.
Related: Blue Origin: Everything you need to know about the private spaceflight company
Blue Origin has launched its suborbital, fully reusable New Shepard vehicle 29 times to date, most recently on Feb. 4. Nine of those 29 flights have been crewed.
The company is also developing a big, partially reusable rocket called New Glenn, which launched for the first time ever last month. That test flight was a success, with the rocket’s upper stage reaching Earth orbit as planned (though the rocket’s first stage failed in its attempt to land on a ship at sea).
Blue Origin has other irons in the fire as well. For example, it’s working on a spacecraft called Blue Moon, which NASA selected to be the second crewed lander for its Artemis program.
Article by:Source: mwall@space.com (Mike Wall)
