Elon Musk: SpaceX may go bankrupt if rocket engine production issues persist

[enzoalec92]

Quote

He's brought Tesla back from the brink of bankruptcy before in 2018, so I'm sure he'll find a way out of this. After all, the guy's productivity and stress tolerance is on a completely different level from anyone else's, to the point he's referred to it as somewhat of a curse.

<Elon Musk Frantically Warns Employees of Potential SpaceX Bankruptcy
Musk advised employees to work over the weekend after reading Raptor engine production issues were far worse than previously thought.

Image: Win McNamee (Getty Images)

SpaceX employees received a nightmare email over the holiday weekend from CEO Elon Musk, warning them of a brewing crisis with its Raptor engine production that, if unsolved, could result in the company’s bankruptcy. The email, obtained by SpaceExplored, CNBC, and The Verge, urged employees to work over the weekend in a desperate attempt to increase production of the engine meant to power its next-generation Starship launch vehicle.

“Unfortunately, the Raptor production crisis is much worse than it seemed a few weeks ago,” Musk reportedly wrote. “As we have dug into the issues following exiting prior senior management, they have unfortunately turned out to be far more severe than was reported. There is no way to sugarcoat this.”

SpaceX did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment but Musk did Tweet about the report Tuesday afternoon.

“The magnitude of the Starship program is not widely appreciated” Musk tweeted. “It is designed to extend life to Mars (and the moon), which requires ~1000 times more payload to orbit than all current Earth rockets combined.” Though Musk did not confirm or deny the email’s veracity he spoke to its content saying that, while he did not believe bankruptcy was likely, it wasn’t impossible either. The CEO went on to apparently quote Intel founder and former CEO Andrew Grove, writing “only the paranoid survive.”

In his email, Musk advised workers to cut their holiday weekend short and called for an “all hands on deck to recover from what is, quite frankly, a disaster.” Summing up the problem, Musk warned the company could face bankruptcy if it could not get Starship flights running once every two weeks in 2022. If all of this sounds familiar, that’s because Musk has previously spoken publicly about times where both SpaceX and Tesla were on the verge of bankruptcy in their early years. More recently Musk claimed Tesla came within “single digits” of bankruptcy as recent as 2018.

Raptor’s engine is a critical component of Starship, which SpaceX hopes will one-day transport cargo and people to the moon and Mars. Starship’s ability to meet these ambitious goals is critical to SpaceX’s long-term success which is built upon Elon Musk’s promise of multi-planetary human exploration. According to Musk’s email, Starship will also play a critical role in launching Starlink’s next-generation satellites into orbit.

Musk’s stressed-out email follows a tweet earlier this month where the CEO admitted the Raptor 2 would need a “complete design overhaul” to make multi-planetary life possible. Not long after that, two SpaceX vice presidents abruptly left the company according to CNBC. One of those executives, Will Heltsley, who had been at the company since 2009, was working on the Raptor project but was taken off due to a lack of progress.

The alarming news comes near the close of what’s been an otherwise stellar year for SpaceX. In 11 months SpaceX managed to launch 25 successful Falcon 9 missions, sent a dozen astronauts to space and drew a roadmap to mass commercialization with its Starlink satellite internet service.

You can read the full email over at The Verge.>

[Windwaver]

[kobayashiGT]

he don't care about money. 🤣

[Sosaria]

So, employees working extra hours over the weekend for free, cut enough costs to save company from bankruptcy??

 

[Lala81]

He's a work fanatic with genius level IQ.

Not surprising. But that's why he can do all the stuff he does.

 

[enzoalec92]

On 12/2/2021 at 8:47 PM, kobayashiGT said:

he don't care about money. 🤣

 I'm not sure he doesn't, or else he wouldn't have sent the panic-inducing email he did LOL. More specifically, I think he just doesn't care for it as much in his personal life, as he sold off a whole bunch of his houses not that long ago: https://www.livemint.com/news/world/billionaire-elon-musk-sells-all-his-mansions-moves-into-tiny-prefab-house-11624721072148.html

On 12/2/2021 at 9:18 PM, Sosaria said:

So, employees working extra hours over the weekend for free, cut enough costs to save company from bankruptcy??

 

The following screenshot taken of a comment from the original article I linked to sums it up best! 😂

11 hours ago, Lala81 said:

He's a work fanatic with genius level IQ.

Not surprising. But that's why he can do all the stuff he does.

 

100%, his sheer output and contribution to humankind is on another planet altogether.

Spoiler

Because Mars and SpaceX, get it? I'll send myself out, maybe of orbit itself, hahahahaha! 😝

In all seriousness, while I despise a lot of his implementations (all car features only accessible via touchscreen, steering yoke, child's name, etc.), I also have to admit it's because of his otherworldly ideas that he's able to accomplish countless things that were previously said to be impossible. For that, I greatly respect what he's done, but it's important to distance myself from his fervent fanclub which thinks he can do no wrong LOL.

[awhtc]

He is just squeezing his workers.

 

SpaceX wins more Nasa flights as Boeing Starliner stumbles

SAT, DEC 04, 2021 - 8:55 AM

[NEW YORK] Nasa will award SpaceX three additional Crew Dragon flights to the International Space Station to keep its crew rotations intact as the agency continues to work with Boeing to address glitches keeping that company's Starliner vehicle from ferrying astronauts.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration awarded Boeing and SpaceX six flights each to carry crew to and from the station after their respective vehicles gain certification, with Elon Musk's SpaceX now at the halfway mark of its initial contract from 2014.

The newly commissioned SpaceX flights are expected as soon as 2023, Nasa said Friday in its notice of a "sole source contract modification." The potential value of the contract revision was not released.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/technology/spacex-wins-more-nasa-flights-as-boeing-starliner-stumbles

 

[AndeeLee2]

Musk uses strategies that are incomprehensible to ordinary people, but you have to admit, he always manages to succeed.

[Jamesc]

That's what he said about Twitter too!

Going bank up

[AndeeLee2]

Elon Musk has great ambitions for his spacecraft.