Elon Musk announced on Friday his company, SpaceX, is planning to reduce its number of workers by 10 percent. The company presently employs 6,000 people. The company says it is necessary to part with a tenth of its manpower due to difficult times expected in the near future.
In a statement released by email, a company spokesman expressed the need for the company to become cut costs and streamline methods of operations. The spokesman says this is the only way to assure the company will be able to continue its mission to develop a space-based internet and produce spacecraft with interplanetary travel capabilities. The spokesman ended the statement by saying SpaceX is dealing with issues that have bankrupted other companies.
Musk fired seven employees from its Seattle office who were involved with the senior management of the company back in June. The firings were said to be the result of disagreements regarding the development pace of the company’s Starlink satellite.
The Starlink program by SpaceX is in a direct competition involving OneWeb and the Canadian company Telesat to become the first provider of satellite-based internet service.
Musk transferred a new management team made up of personnel who had previously worked at the company’s headquarters in California.
The company scored a victory a month ago when it launched its first space mission to benefit national security. The SpaceX rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida and carried a satellite navigation system into space for the U.S. military.
The Wall Street Journal reported the value of the company in December at approximately $30 billion. This valuation came after SpaceX was able to raise $500 million through investors.
SpaceX announced earlier it planned to send an unmanned rocket to Mars by 2022. The company says a manned launch was planned for two years later in 2024.
This is the second company owned by Elon Musk to announce deep job cuts in recent months. Musk’s Tesla Inc., a maker of electric cars, announced in June it will be cutting nine percent of its workforce. The cuts at Tesla were explained as necessary to reduce the costs of operations.
Dil Bole Oberoi
