Bezos' Blue Origin bracing for large job cuts after years of expansion

By Eric Johnson and Loren Grush

 

Blue Origin LLC is bracing for a large reduction in its workforce, people familiar with the matter said, in a sign the Jeff Bezos-backed space company is looking to cut costs and focus resources on ramping up rocket launches after years of R&D work.

 

The magnitude of the job cuts wasn’t immediately clear, though one of the people said it will be at least in the hundreds of jobs and potentially reach one thousand or more employees. 

 

Blue Origin is expected to discuss the personnel shakeup during an all-hands employee meeting with Chief Executive Officer Dave Limp set for Thursday morning, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter is confidential.

 

A Blue Origin spokesperson declined to comment.

 

A surprise round of layoffs or other reductions would come about a month after Blue Origin debuted its flagship New Glenn rocket following years of delays and development setbacks. 

 

Speaking at a conference in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, Limp noted the success of the recent New Glenn launch, but said the company’s work is just beginning.

 

“We have a lot of work to do ahead of us, and we have to get to a cadence where we’re flying very often, got to get the manufacturing to a higher cadence,” Limp said. “But it’s such a good first step to see it happen.”

 

Bezos, who started Amazon.com Inc. and is the world’s third-richest person, founded Blue Origin in 2000. Since then, the company’s payroll has gone as high as roughly 14,000 employees spread across its headquarters in the Seattle area and sprawling manufacturing and launch operations sites in Florida, Texas and Alabama. Blue Origin maintains an ambitious space portfolio that includes space tourism, a moon lander, space station and supplying rocket engines. 

 

Limp, an ex-Amazon leader, was hired in 2023 to help shake the company out of a years-long R&D slump. Among its pressing goals is to ramp up New Glenn flights and clear some $10 billion worth of launch contracts. 

 

Blue Origin has drawn unfavorable comparisons to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which leapfrogged many startups over the past quarter century to become the world’s most prolific rocket launcher.