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SpaceX to Lay Off 10% of Its Workers (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader quotes CNN:
SpaceX is laying off 10% of its 6,000-person workforce as it tackles two hugely expensive projects. Elon Musk's rocket company said its finances are healthy, but that it needs to make cuts so its most ambitious plans can succeed. "To continue delivering for our customers and to succeed in developing interplanetary spacecraft and a global space-based Internet, SpaceX must become a leaner company," the company said in a statement....
The company earns tens of millions of dollars per launch. SpaceX was recently valued at $30.5 billion after initiating a $500 million equity sale in December. The company also took on about $250 million in debt last year in its first loan sale, according to the Wall Street Journal. But SpaceX's new products are expected to cost billions to develop. In September, Musk estimated SpaceX would spend between $2 billion and $10 billion developing an ultra-powerful spaceship and rocket system, recently renamed Starship and Super Heavy.
SpaceX plans to use the technology to fly tourists to space and, potentially, one day send humans to Mars... SpaceX is also developing a constellation of satellites that could one day beam high-speed internet down to the Earth. SpaceX Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said during a TED Talk last year that she expects the satellite constellation to cost about $10 billion to deploy. The company has already made headway on both projects.
The company earns tens of millions of dollars per launch. SpaceX was recently valued at $30.5 billion after initiating a $500 million equity sale in December. The company also took on about $250 million in debt last year in its first loan sale, according to the Wall Street Journal. But SpaceX's new products are expected to cost billions to develop. In September, Musk estimated SpaceX would spend between $2 billion and $10 billion developing an ultra-powerful spaceship and rocket system, recently renamed Starship and Super Heavy.
SpaceX plans to use the technology to fly tourists to space and, potentially, one day send humans to Mars... SpaceX is also developing a constellation of satellites that could one day beam high-speed internet down to the Earth. SpaceX Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said during a TED Talk last year that she expects the satellite constellation to cost about $10 billion to deploy. The company has already made headway on both projects.
This has become the standard way for corporations to celebrate huge success.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I can't get used to successful companies doing big layoffs just to rebalance for the current workload. I guess it is rational given the assumption that plenty of well-qualified people will always be looking for work - although I'm surprised this is the case here - but beside that if there is no weight given to continuity for employees it just seems impossible to have a stable career + marriage + life.
Ok that subject is funny.
Exploring? The species? Asteroid mining? I thought it was in the bag, this was it, the species is leaving this rock?
Read comment subject. :-D
Didn't work hard enough for Elon
Was anyone else reading this subject line and translated it to
âSpaceX to Lay Off 10% of Its.... SPACEFORCE!â
And as read in DJTâ(TM)s annoying voice?
lol
In ten years they will simply have put a bunch of abandoned space junk in orbit, if they even get that far. Musk is pretty much the equivalent of a flying car salesman from the 1950s. Yawn.
California can't even build a train across a flat valley for $25 billion.
SpaceX puts a constellation of advance satellites into orbit for $10 billion,,
especially when your job is to get the wrong answer :)
[($)]
I wonder if this has to do with their big changes to the "Starship" from a carbon fiber/PICA-X design to an actively cooled stainless steel design. Shedding one focused workforce (carbon fiber) so they can eventually rehire another (metal work). It is also (for better or worse) a pretty standard procedure in competitive industries to "cull the heard" as it were once in a while to keep the company from getting too complacent. It stinks for those being cut no doubt, but it's better than ending up like the behemoths they're competing against who are still using 1970-80s tech and burning up insane amounts of money on their way to obscurity.
The downsized employees will start their own new company called SpaceY?
When your launchers can be reused 10 times, you don't need to continuously build them. Sooner or later you have enough.
... and against the initial, much more cost effective plan to invite 10% of their staff to be on their first testing flights with humans on board. Phew!
They didn't get a govt contract and so they lose 10% of their workforce and the taxpayer pays 500% more for rockets.
Rubbish! Their lawns will need mowing, their houses will need cleaning, their brats' snotty noses will need wiping.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
SpaceX hasn't done any public offerings..
Very little stock is out there
I'm not impressed by this.
In general, I'm a fan of Elon Musk and his guts taking on big problems and entrenched jerk-off competitors. And he's doing it for higher purposes. What bothers me here is that most of the people working for him or with him are in it for the same reason. They are generally smart people who are on board for the same higher purposes. And then he thinks it's OK to dump on those people? Either 1) he made some big mistakes managing growth/anticipating the market, or 2) they ran into troubles that couldn't be anticipated. Either way, his people are due an apology.
Maybe the guy is just missing the empathy muscle.
There are better ways to trim costs. And, why shouldn't you be transparent about this stuff?
Tells us again how the rocket landings were faked.