Jeff Bezos doubles Blue Origin’s time to focus more on his space business

Jeff Bezos has called Blue Origin the most important job of his life – and the hours he devotes to the space company are increasing as a result.

Historically, Bezos had devoted Wednesday afternoons to updates and discussions at Blue Origin, people familiar with the situation told CNBC – meetings that took place in person before the Covid pandemic, and have been on the phone since. However, over the past month it has also added Tuesday afternoons, those people said.

While Bezos’ increased engagement with the company has been previously reported, how involved he is with Blue Origin has not. As one of the richest people in the world and still involved at Amazon as the company’s executive chairman, Bezos’ time demands are high, so spending twice as much time with his space company. represents a significant additional commitment.

Blue Origin and Bezos did not respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.

Its doubled effort comes at a critical time in Blue Origin’s history: the company is engaged in a fierce legal battle over NASA’s awarding of a multibillion-dollar lunar lander contract to Elon’s SpaceX. Musk, a key customer of its BE-4 rocket engines is getting louder and louder after years of delay, Blue Origin’s first orbital rocket is also years behind, and its suborbital space research and tourism activities are now in progress.

Blue Origin’s technological development also faces a new hurdle in the form of the departure of top talent, as CNBC reported in August. Disagreements with decisions made by Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith were the most common reason for senior executives and engineers leaving, people familiar with CNBC told CNBC. Smith is a former Honeywell executive, who Bezos hired to lead the company in 2017.

Part of the extra time spent at Blue Origin represents a renewed interest in Bezos. For example, one person told CNBC they are hosting an annual company-wide question-and-answer session with employees – but hasn’t done so in 2020, and hasn’t done so yet. This year.

It is not known if Bezos is also investing more heavily in Blue Origin. In 2017, he said he was selling $ 1 billion a year of his Amazon shares to fund the development of Blue Origin, but recently Bezos increased those equity sales without indicating whether all of those funds go to the space company.

Bezos, who stepped down as CEO of Amazon in July, is also paying attention to how the two companies he founded might interact. Senior management at Blue Origin has held regular meetings to win contracts to launch Amazon’s Project Kuiper Internet satellites, people familiar with CNBC told CNBC. But, after United Launch Alliance – the rocket-building joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin – won the first launch contract with Amazon earlier this year, Bezos began attending Blue Origin’s Kuiper meetings, the people said. .

Amazon, when it announced the contract for nine ULA launches in April, pointed out that multiple launch partners will be needed to launch the 3,235 Kuiper satellites. That leaves the door open for Blue Origin to grab the next one – this time, perhaps, with the help of the man who knows Amazon better than anyone on the planet.