In mid-January, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin launched its New Glenn rocket into orbit for the first time. And now, today, the company announced a 10% layoff.
In mid-January, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin launched its New Glenn rocket into orbit for the first time. And now, today, the company announced a 10% layoff.
The layoffs were announced during a general meeting Thursday morning chaired by CEO Dave Limp. During the meeting, Limp cited “business strategy” as the reason for the layoffs of more than 10,000 employees, Ars Technica reports .
Blue Origin was founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000, and he continues to allocate about $2 billion annually to support its operations.
In a follow-up email to employees on Thursday morning, titled “Complex Organizational News,” Limp said the decision was a result of the company’s 2025 planning and the need for sustainable growth. Blue Origin’s primary goal for the next year is to increase production and launch frequency of the New Glenn rocket. Limp cited the need to complete the development of New Glenn and get the rocket into orbit as the reason for the cuts.
“We’ve been growing and hiring incredibly quickly over the past few years, and with that growth came more bureaucracy and less focus than we needed,” Limp writes. “It also became clear that the makeup of our organization needed to change to ensure our roles were best aligned with these priorities.”
The reduction resulted in the elimination of some positions in engineering, R&D, and program/project management, as well as at the management level.
Limp says these complex decisions will help Blue Origin succeed this year and beyond. “This year alone, we will land on the Moon, deliver a record number of incredible engines, and conduct regular flights on New Glenn and New Shepard,” he wrote.
Even before Thursday's announcement, Blue Origin had been trying to control costs. The company had frozen hiring for the past six months, according to sources. And in January, it laid off most of its contractors.
The cuts appear to be an attempt by Bezos, who hired Limp a little over a year ago, to put Blue Origin on a more financially sustainable footing. While Bezos could continue to fund Blue Origin indefinitely with the wealth he acquired from Amazon, he has insisted that the programs become, at worst, revenue-neutral.
In addition to the New Glenn rocket, Blue Origin is working on developing large unmanned and manned lunar rovers, a human spacecraft for the rocket, and the Orbital Reef space station.
