SpaceX set to lay off 10% of its workforce in order to get “leaner”

Things haven’t been going great for Elon Musk over the past year. But it’s about to get way worse for the employees in his rocket manufacturing company, SpaceX. The news comes from Eric Berger, Senior Space Editor at Ars Technica. He tweeted mentioning that the company would part ways with 10% of its employees due to “extraordinarily difficult challenges ahead”.

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. Either of these developments, even when attempted separately, have bankrupted other organizations. This means we must part ways with some talented and hardworking members of our team. We are grateful for everything they have accomplished and their commitment to SpaceX’s mission. This action is taken only due to the extraordinarily difficult challenges ahead and would not otherwise be necessary.

SpaceX spokesperson

TechCrunch reports that the company has employed over 7,000 people (last counted late 2017). This would mean roughly 700 poor souls would be losing their jobs. Reportedly, the laid-off personnel would be a minimum of eight weeks’ pay and other benefits including assistance with career coaching, resume help and job searches.

This isn’t the only laying-off Elon’s companies have experienced. Over the past year, there has a been a lot of management shake-up involved, Elon included. Over seven people in Senior Management positions working on the SpaceX project were fired and around 9% of Tesla’s workforce was also let go.

Even though the company is depleting its funds as quickly as the fuel on its rockets, skeptics believe this is not the right move going forward. They believe given the colossal nature of their work, SpaceX cannot afford to trim off fat. In fact, they believe SpaceX’s crew is young and small as compared to other Aerospace corporations.

However, things aren’t all that bad for the company. The company has a lot of interesting projects in the pipeline. Just yesterday (Friday), the company launched its first rocket into space. Elon Musk also teased us with the sneak peek at the Starship prototype which is set to take flight in a couple of months. SpaceX will also test their Crew Dragon spacecraft very soon and if things go right, they could start sending Astronauts to the ISS as early as June. This is not all, the company also is working on launching its satellite constellation as a part of the Starlink project. Under this project, Elon Musk aims to provide high-speed internet connectivity to every corner of the world by 2020.