SpaceX may go bankrupt, jeopardising Elon Musk’s space vision

SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk reportedly told staff that the company is in “crisis” and may go into bankruptcy. That is, if the efforts put towards the production of the Raptor engine is not boosted. 

As of October, SpaceX’s market capitalization has reached $100 billion, marking the company’s best year ever. The company’s Starlink project, which intends to provide high-speed internet through a constellation of satellites, has also recently emerged from beta. After losing its lawsuit against NASA, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is now again partnering with SpaceX on the Starship Lunar Lander.

SpaceX plans to utilise the Raptor engine to power its next-generation Starship launch vehicle, which it intends to carry humans into orbit one day. It is currently being developed as a lunar lander for NASA’s Artemis programme. While this is true, the company’s long-term viability appears to be in peril as a result of the severe production challenges with the Raptor engine.

According to Space Explored, Musk’s email forewarns of serious consequences if the company failed to speed up the production of its Raptor engines. For financial viability, SpaceX must launch Starship at least once every two weeks in 2022. And so,  to accomplish this, the company must massively boost its Raptor engine production. 

With the production bottleneck being decried as a “disaster,” Musk has pushed his employees to continue working through the Thanksgiving weekend to meet the demands. However, it is unclear how many employees returned to the work center over the thanksgiving holiday.

As stated in the email, the constraints with the Raptors were “far more severe” than previously assumed, and can only be overcome by putting in more hours over the next many weeks and months. Musk, who is well-known for working seven days a week, explained in the email that he was cancelling plans to take the weekend off in order to solve the issue facing the company. “I will be on the Raptor line all night and into the weekend,”.

At this point, it’s unclear whether the issues are truly as bad as Musk is portraying them, or whether the bankruptcy chatter is simply hyped in the traditional Elon Musk way. The year 2022 is expected to be a turning point for SpaceX, and it might have a significant impact on the company’s future. 

The urgency with which Musk issued his warning, on the other hand, is likely motivated more by the need to keep the workforce motivated in order to accomplish a tight and ambitious timeline than by any real danger of SpaceX going bankrupt.