The corporate, which has roughly 13,000 workers, was valued at an estimated $350 billion in 2024, and it was final reported in 2023 that Musk holds a 42 per cent share and 79 per cent of the voting energy within the enterprise.
SpaceX has made vital developments since its launch. The corporate was the primary non-public one to launch folks into house. Its Starlink division is the largest satellite tv for pc operator within the globe. With their reusable rockets and lowered launch prices, SpaceX has outperformed rivals like Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.
However that’s to not say Blue Origin is a failure. Blue Origin has achieved necessary milestones since its early days in 2000. The creation of reusable rockets, profitable vertical landings, and collaborations with Nasa for lunar exploration are a number of of its noteworthy achievements.
The corporate is alleged to have 14,000 workers, which is barely extra when put next with SpaceX. However in February 2025, stories recommended that it was lowering 10 per cent of the corporate’s workforce.
Whereas we’re witnessing all of the implausible outcomes each firms are producing, we don’t normally hear in regards to the issues that go on behind the scenes. What’s the security file trying like for each these house firms?
Elon Musk is the CEO of SpaceX
(Kirsty Wigglesworth/PA)
A Reuters investigation in 2022 discovered that SpaceX’s manufacturing and launch facility in Brownsville, Texas had an harm charge of 4.8 per 100 employees, which is six occasions increased than the house business common.
In accordance with eight former SpaceX workers, a string of security lapses in January 2022 led to at least one critical harm, highlighting systemic points at SpaceX.
Worker Francisco Cabada suffered a fractured cranium and was positioned in a coma after an element fell off throughout strain testing of a Raptor V2 rocket engine.
Senior officers on the Hawthorne, California web site have been commonly cautioned in regards to the dangers of expediting the engine’s growth, in addition to the necessity for adequate workers coaching and part testing, the people advised Reuters.
In accordance with two workers, the half that malfunctioned and hit the employee had a defect that was discovered however left unfixed previous to testing.
The Cabada household reached out to the corporate to search out out why he wasn’t protected, however Cabada’s spouse Ydy stated she obtained no response. She advised Reuters on the time: “It might have been good to get a name from Elon Musk. However I suppose employees are simply disposable to them.”
The investigation additionally highlights that whereas the Occupational Security and Well being Administration (OSHA) has required firms to report their complete variety of accidents yearly since 2016, SpaceX failed to take action for many of these years.
Regardless of this, Reuters was in a position to uncover at the very least 600 accidents by trying by means of courtroom paperwork in employee lawsuits, worker medical information, state employees’ compensation claims in addition to emergency-call information.
Harm charges at SpaceX are a lot increased than the house business common
AP
Greater than a dozen present and former workers claimed that SpaceX regularly uncared for to adequately practice or equip new hires and infrequently hurried to rent workers. For instance, they claimed that inexperienced employees got welding tools with none instruction.
4 of those employees, who had simply graduated from faculty, talked about having to make troublesome choices in regards to the security of dangerous actions with no course.
OSHA inspection paperwork present that in November 2021, two technicians from Brownsville have been utilizing a crane outfitted with a lifting magnet to maneuver 500-pound sq. metal tubing. OSHA decided that as a result of the crane was solely constructed to carry 300 kilos, the tube fell and crushed a employee’s hand.
In accordance with the company’s inspection report despatched to Reuters, the employee, whose identification was redacted, wanted long-term care following surgical procedure, which included having a part of their ring finger amputated.
The corporate was criticised by the company for not making certain that employees examined the crane’s capability to hoist the load. After agreeing to handle the worker-safety points famous within the report, SpaceX appealed the $43,506 punishment and had it lowered to $8,701.
In accordance with the information given by OSHA, just a little greater than six months after opening, its latest facility – a further Starlink manufacturing unit in Bastrop County, Texas – had already recorded a charge of 2.5 accidents per 100 workers.
By way of extra not too long ago recorded accidents, Washington’s Division of Labour handed a effective to SpaceX final yr February for a “close to amputation” that occurred on the Redmond web site. In accordance with the inquiry, SpaceX was unable to supply a sufficiently secure atmosphere for the job being achieved there.
Blue Origin security file
Blue Origin was topic to a variety of poisonous office tradition allegations in 2021
REUTERS
In comparison with SpaceX, Blue Origin has had fewer reported accidents.
Nevertheless, 21 present and former Blue Origin workers publicly accused the corporate in 2021 of getting a poisonous office tradition, citing issues like unsafe practices, an absence of tolerance for dissent, and sexism.
Lots of the accusations have been made towards particular male leaders within the firm, as detailed in an essay posted on the web site Lioness.
Fearing skilled retaliation, all however one signatory, Alexandra Abrams, selected to not be publicly recognized.
She labored for the corporate for 2 and a half years and briefly labored in public relations earlier than founding the worker communications division earlier than being let go in 2019.
Bob Smith, the CEO of Blue Origin, who took management of the enterprise in 2017, is alleged to have established an “inside circle” of reliable high executives who regularly make “unilateral choices, typically with out the buy-in of engineers, different specialists, or senior leaders throughout numerous departments,” in keeping with the essay.
The authors of the essay additionally condemn Blue Origin’s alleged sexist practices, detailing a piece atmosphere the place ladies’s opinions are regularly disregarded and a few male executives are reportedly identified to deal with feminine workers members with disrespect.
The essay additionally provides a senior government who was additionally part of Mr Smith’s purported inside circle was the goal of “a number of” HR complaints due to his “constantly inappropriate [behaviour] with ladies”.
The allegations additionally cowl Blue Origin’s want to place pace over security. A senior engineer is talked about to have resigned in April 2020 to protest a “‘schedule-biased drive [that] is incapable of manufacturing secure methods engineering”.
CNN Enterprise who got entry to the resignation letter stated it learn: “On this atmosphere, security isn’t an possibility, even when we repeatedly state that it’s our highest precedence.”
In an announcement launched on the time, Blue Origin denied the allegations made within the essay and stated it has “no tolerance for discrimination or harassment of any variety. We offer quite a few avenues for workers, together with a 24/7 nameless hotline, and can promptly examine any new claims of misconduct”.
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