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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.
...although I'm surprised this is the case here....
You're not well acquainted with the aerospace industry, are you.
I did three internships in the space industry. For two of those summers the guys I was working with had been on that exact same project for at least 20 years. They said the project had changed hands through six companies and about half as many managers, but the project trudged on and the jobs persisted, with no end in sight. By the time of my third internship, those contracts had changed hands again and I ended up working with a different group...which had likewise already lasted through at least a few changes of corporate overlords, though admittedly not as many as that first group.
Most people I know who went to SpaceX planned to work there 5 years + 1 day to ensure they were vested in their options. If those options are starting to look shaky that could be a bit of a problem for employee retention.
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.
Or maybe they are cutting their biggest controllable expense, since they are losing billions of dollars...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
It is when that 10% is more than 500 people. This layoff meets the legal definition of a mass layoff, and has specific actions the company must take related to the mass layoff.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!