Vishala Sri-Pathma & João da Silva
Business reporters
Blue Origin, the rocket company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is laying off about 1,400 employees, or about 10% of its workforce, according to an internal email obtained by BBC News.
In the memo to staff, Blue Origin’s chief executive, Dave Limp, said the job cuts are part of a plan to trim managerial ranks and focus resources on ramping up rocket launches.
Blue Origin has recently completed the first test flight of its New Glenn rocket, marking a major milestone for the company.
Founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000, the company has been a key player in the private space race, but it is seen as lagging behind rivals such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
In the email to staff, Mr Limp said it had become “clear that the makeup of our organisation must change” to meet its present priorities.
“Our primary focus in 2025 and beyond is to scale our manufacturing output and launch cadence with speed, decisiveness, and efficiency for our customers.”
On top of some management roles, the company will also be eliminating jobs in research and development (R&D), and engineering.
In 2023, Mr Bezos gave Mr Limp, who until then had worked at Amazon’s customer-focused devices unit, the top job at Blue Origin.
The leadership overhaul was part of a change in strategy at the company that included an increased focus on developing the New Glenn.
Blue Origin has been dramatically outperformed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX but last month’s launch was an important step for Mr Bezos’ company.
The powerful New Glenn is able to carry large and heavy payloads including satellites into space.
Named after John Glenn, the first American astronaut to orbit Earth more than 60 years ago, the rocket is more powerful than SpaceX’s Falcon 9.
It can also carry more satellites, and Bezos wants to use it as part of his Project Kuiper, which aims to deploy thousands of low-earth satellites to provide broadband services.
That project would compete directly with Musk’s Starlink service.
