Jeff Bezos-backed Blue Origin to cut 10% of its workforce

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Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin LLC is cutting about 10% of its workforce, a significant pullback aimed at slashing costs and refocusing resources after years of development work.

The rocket and engine maker laid out the personnel shakeup during an all-hands employee meeting with Chief Executive Officer Dave Limp Thursday morning, confirming a workforce reduction first reported by Bloomberg.

In a memo sent to employees, Limp said the company’s growth led to “more bureaucracy and less focus” than needed after a hiring spree over the past few years. After years of expansion bankrolled by Bezos, who started Amazon.com Inc. and is the world’s third-richest person, Blue Origin is looking to trim manager ranks as it works to clear some $10 billion worth of launch contracts. With a staff of more than 10,000, the layoffs stand to impact over 1,000 roles.

Blue Origin is eliminating positions in engineering, research and development, and project management, as well as “thinning out our layers of management,” Limp wrote in the email, which was viewed by Bloomberg.

The surprise round of layoffs comes about a month after Blue Origin debuted its flagship New Glenn rocket following years of delays and development setbacks.

Bezos 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.

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. Limp, an ex-Amazon leader, was hired in 2023 to help shake the company out of a years-long R&D slump.

Limp added that the company is looking to the future, including landing an uncrewed vehicle on the moon in 2025 and increasing the cadence of New Glenn and New Shepard launches.