Employees at SpaceX seem to be departing the company. It was reported by CNBC that three of the company’s top executives have left their roles in the past two weeks. The employees that have left include VP of propulsion Will Heltsley, VP of mission and launch operations Lee Rosen, and senior director of mission and launch operations, Ricky Lim.
It has raised discussions on the reason why they all decided to leave and on such a crucial time when the company is working on its new product’s launch. This time is very important for the agency and top employees leaving at this stage is definitely raising concerns about the internal operations of the organization.
It is being said that these top executives decided to leave because the pressure to develop and launch the futuristic next generation of the rocket was becoming too colossal to handle.
It was also revealed by the resources that Heltsley was removed from the Raptor engine development process due to its lack of progress. These are the engines are used in the Starship rocket along with the Super Heavy boosters. These boosters are the major components in the company’s project of reaching the moon.
The CEO Elon Musk stated last week when he tweeted about the engine’s development, that the Raptor 2 had “significant improvements” a “complete design overhaul is necessary for the engine that can actually make life multi-planetary.” He added that the engine would be dropping the Raptor moniker as well.
Furthermore, besides these three employees, a lot of other employees have also resigned from their positions recently. This is being related to SpaceX’s purchase offer on Friday, which also happened to be tied to employees’ stock vesting schedules.
This has rightfully raised a myriad of questions. However, it is also expected of the fast-paced and futuristic companies to have tremendous pressure that can lead to employees not being able to keep up with it and quitting in the end. SpaceX is on the cutting edge of aerospace technology and the pressure is bound to be tied with it. In this scenario, the surprising thing would be if the former employees of the agency say that your aerospace company is a terrible place to work and then proceed to work for your rival instead.