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Jeff Bezos, owner of Blue Origin, introduces a new lunar landing module called Blue Moon during an event at the Washington Convention Center, May 9, 2019 in Washington, DC.
Mark Wilson | Getty Images

Jeff Bezos flew to space late last month, but his company has lost top talent since the billionaire space founder came back to Earth.

At least 11 key leaders and senior engineers have left Blue Origin this summer, CNBC has learned, with many moving on in the weeks after Bezos’ spaceflight.

Two of the engineers, Nitin Arora and Lauren Lyons, this week announced jobs at other space companies: Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Firefly Aerospace, respectively.

Others quietly updated their LinkedIn pages over the past few weeks.

Each unannounced departure was confirmed to CNBC by people familiar with the matter. Those departures include the following people: New Shepard senior vice president Steve Bennett, chief of mission assurance Jeff Ashby (who retired), New Glenn senior director Bob Ess, New Glenn senior finance manager Bill Scammell, senior manager of production testing Christopher Payne, senior propulsion design engineer Dave Sanderson, senior HLS human factors engineer Rachel Forman, propulsion engineer Rex Gu, and rocket engine development engineer Gerry Hudak.

Those who announced they were leaving Blue Origin did not specify why, but frustration with executive management and a slow, bureaucratic structure is often cited in employee reviews on job site Glassdoor.

A company spokesperson emphasized Blue Origin’s growth in a statement to CNBC.

“Blue Origin grew by 850 people in 2020 and we have grown by another 650 so far in 2021. In fact, we’ve grown by nearly a factor of four over the past three years. We continue to fill out major leadership roles in manufacturing, quality, engine design, and vehicle design. It’s a team we’re building and we have great talent,” the spokesperson said.

Some of the engineers who left were part of Blue Origin’s astronaut lunar lander program. Bezos’ company lost its bid for a valuable NASA development contract in April when SpaceX was announced as the sole awardee under the space agency’s Human Landing System (HLS) program, winning a $2.9 billion contract.

But, despite the Government Accountability Office last month denying Blue Origin’s protest of NASA’s decision, the company has continued to escalate its fight to be a part of the Human Landing System program. Blue Origin company first launched a public relations offensive against SpaceX’s Starship rocket and then, on Monday, sued NASA in federal court.

A $10,000 bonus

Jeff Bezos pops champagne after emerging from the New Shepard capsule after his spaceflight on July 20, 2021.
Blue Origin

The company has nearly 4,000 employees around the U.S., with its headquarters near Seattle in Kent, Washington, as well as facilities in Cape Canaveral, Florida; Van Horn, Texas; and Huntsville, Alabama.

Shortly after Bezos’ July 20 spaceflight, Blue Origin gave all of its full-time employees a $10,000, no-strings-attached cash bonus, multiple people familiar with the situation told CNBC. None of Blue Origin’s contractors received the bonus, which was paid out to employees on July 30. The company confirmed the bonus, with a spokesperson noting that it was intended as a “thank you” for achieving the milestone of launching people to space.

Internally, two people told CNBC that the bonus was perceived as the company’s leadership attempting to entice talent to stay – in response to the number of employees filing notices to leave after launching its first crew to space and back safely.

A look at Glassdoor reveals a sharp disparity in employee satisfaction with Blue Origin’s leadership when compared to other top space companies. According to Glassdoor, just 15% of Blue Origin employees approve of CEO Bob Smith – versus 91% for Elon Musk at SpaceX or 77% for Tory Bruno at United Launch Alliance.

The HLS fight

A mockup of the crew lander vehicle at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in August 2020.
Blue Origin

NASA’s Human Landing System program is one of the critical pieces of the agency’s plan to return U.S. astronauts to the surface of the moon, known as Artemis.

Last year, NASA handed out nearly $1 billion in concept development contracts for HLS – with SpaceX receiving $135 million, Leidos‘ subsidiary Dynetics receiving $253 million, and Blue Origin receiving $579 million. The space agency then expected to award two of those three companies with hardware development contracts this year, but, following a shortfall of request funding for HLS from Congress, NASA decided to give only SpaceX a contract, worth about $2.9 billion.

Blue Origin and Dynetics each quickly filed protests with the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which halted NASA’s work on the program until the protests could be resolved. The GAO on July 30 upheld NASA’s decision. On Aug. 16, Blue Origin took its battle a step further, suing NASA in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

NASA has paid $300 million of its SpaceX’s contract so far, with the payment made on the day the GAO denied the protests. However, the space agency’s work on HLS has once again halted – this time due to the Blue Origin lawsuit, according to court filings on Thursday – and will not resume until Nov. 1.

Major delays

Billionaire businessman Jeff Bezos is launched with three crew members aboard a New Shepard rocket on the world’s first unpiloted suborbital flight from Blue Origin’s Launch Site 1 near Van Horn, Texas, July 20, 2021.
Joe Skipper | Reuters

Blue Origin has struggled to deliver on multiple major programs since Bezos hired Smith as CEO in 2017. Bezos founded the company in 2000, with the goal of creating “a future where millions of people are living and working in space to benefit Earth.” Delays – although common in the industry in which the adage “space is hard” is persistently heard – have pushed back Bezos’ vision, highlighted by the departure of Blue Origin’s chief operating officer late last year.

Bezos launched to the edge of space as one of the members of the first crew onboard Blue Origin’s reusable New Shepard rocket. While the company has not disclosed pricing, New Shepard competes with Virgin Galactic in the realm of sub-orbital space tourism, with Blue Origin having sold nearly $100 million worth of tickets for future passenger flights. Although the first crewed New Shepard launch was a smooth success, Blue Origin’s leadership had previously expected the rocket to begin launching people by the end of 2017.

An artist’s illustration of a New Glenn rocket standing on the launchpad in Florida.
Blue Origin

New Glenn is the reusable, next-generation rocket that Blue Origin is developing but has yet to launch. Originally slated for an inaugural flight in 2020, the first New Glenn is not expected to liftoff until the fourth quarter of 2022. That’s despite Blue Origin receiving $255.5 million from the U.S. Air Force to help develop the rocket. But the Pentagon did not choose New Glenn for further contracts when the Department of Defense last year selected SpaceX and United Launch Alliance (ULA) for multiple awards, cumulatively worth billions of dollars – a loss that Blue Origin cited when it announced New Glenn’s delay.

BE-4 engine test at Blue Origin’s West Texas launch facility.
Blue Origin

Blue Origin’s third major program is its stable of rocket engines, headlined by the BE-4 engine that will power its New Glenn rocket. The company previously stated that its BE-4 engines would be “ready for flight in 2017.”

However, four years later, development issues and a lack of hardware for testing quickly mean Blue Origin has yet to deliver its first flight engines, ArsTechnica reported earlier this month. The company is pushing to have two BE-4 engines ready by the end of this year. Notably, BE-4 is important beyond Blue Origin, as ULA signed a deal to use the engines to power its Vulcan rockets, choosing Blue Origin over Aerojet Rocketdyne as its supplier. ULA is pushing to have its first Vulcan rocket ready to launch by the end of this year, and Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines are expected to be a, if not the, final piece added before launch.

Bezos has spent the majority of his time in the past two decades focused on Amazon, but along the way has steadily sold pieces of his stake in the tech giant to fund Blue Origin’s development — to the tune of $1 billion a year, or possibly more. Last month, Bezos stepped down as Amazon CEO, with many in the space industry expecting him to spend more time focusing on his space company.

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Nvidia to join Dow Jones Industrial Average, replacing rival chipmaker Intel

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Nvidia to join Dow Jones Industrial Average, replacing rival chipmaker Intel

CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, speaks during the launch of the supercomputer Gefion, where the new AI supercomputer has been established in collaboration with EIFO and NVIDIA at Vilhelm Lauritzen Terminal in Kastrup, Denmark October 23, 2024.

Ritzau Scanpix | Mads Claus Rasmussen | Via Reuters

Nvidia is replacing rival chipmaker Intel in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a shakeup to the blue-chip index that reflects the boom in artificial intelligence and a major shift in the semiconductor industry.

Intel shares were down 1% in extended trading on Friday. Nvidia shares rose 1%.

The switch will take place on Nov. 8. Also, Sherwin Williams will replace Dow Inc. in the index, S&P Dow Jones said in a statement.

Nvidia shares have climbed over 170% so far in 2024 after jumping roughly 240% last year, as investors have rushed to get a piece of the AI chipmaker. Nvidia’s market cap has swelled to $3.3 trillion, second only to Apple among publicly traded companies.

Companies including Microsoft, Meta, Google and Amazon are purchasing Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs), such as the H100, in massive quantities to build clusters of computers for their AI work. Nvidia’s revenue has more than doubled in each of the past five quarters, and has at least tripled in three of them. The company has sginaled that demand for its next-generation AI GPU called Blackwell is “insane.”

With the addition of Nvidia, four of the six trillion-dollar tech companies are now in the index. The two not in the Dow are Alphabet and Meta.

While Nvidia has been soaring, Intel has been slumping. Long the dominant maker of PC chips, Intel has lost market share to Advanced Micro Devices and has made very little headway in AI. Intel shares have fallen by more than half this year as the company struggles with manufacturing challenges and new competition for its central processors.

Intel said in a filing this week that the board’s audit and finance committee approved cost and capital reduction activities, including lowering head count by 16,500 employees and reducing its real estate footprint. The job cuts were originally announced in August.

The Dow contains 30 components and is weighted by the share price of the individual stocks instead of total market value. Nvidia put itself in better position to join the index in May, when the company announced a 10-for-1 stock split. While doing nothing to its market cap, the move slashed the price of each share by 90%, allowing the company to become a part of the Dow without having too heavy a weighting.

The switch is the first change to the index since February, when Amazon replaced Walgreens Boots Alliance. Over the years, the Dow has been playing catchup in gaining exposure to the largest technology companies. The stocks in the index are chosen by a committee from S&P Dow Jones Indices.

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Super Micro’s 44% plunge this week wipes out stock’s gains for the year

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Super Micro's 44% plunge this week wipes out stock's gains for the year

Charles Liang, chief executive officer of Super Micro Computer Inc., during the Computex conference in Taipei, Taiwan, on Wednesday, June 5, 2024. The trade show runs through June 7. 

Annabelle Chih | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Super Micro investors continued to rush the exits on Friday, pushing the stock down another 9% and bringing this week’s selloff to 44%, after the data center company lost its second auditor in less than two years.

The company’s shares fell as low as $26.23, wiping out all of the gains for 2024. Shares had peaked at $118.81 in March, at which point they were up more than fourfold for the year. Earlier that month, S&P Dow Jones added the stock to the S&P 500, and Wall Street was rallying around the company’s growth, driven by sales of servers packed with Nvidia’s artificial intelligence processors.

Super Micro’s spectacular collapse since March has wiped out roughly $55 billion in market cap and left the company at risk of being delisted from the Nasdaq. On Wednesday, as the stock was in the midst of its second-worst day ever, Super Micro said it will provide a “business update” regarding its latest quarter on Tuesday, which is Election Day in the U.S.

The company’s recent challenges date back to August, when Super Micro said it would not file its annual report on time with the SEC. Noted short seller Hindenburg Research then disclosed a short position in the company and wrote in a report that it identified “fresh evidence of accounting manipulation.” The Wall Street Journal later reported that the Department of Justice was in the early stages of a probe into the company.

Super Micro disclosed on Wednesday that Ernst & Young had resigned as its accounting firm just 17 months after taking over from Deloitte & Touche. The auditor said it was “unwilling to be associated with the financial statements prepared by management.”

A Super Micro spokesperson told CNBC that the company “disagrees with E&Y’s decision to resign, and we are working diligently to select new auditors.” Super Micro does not expect matters raised by Ernst & Young to “result in any restatements of its quarterly financial results for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2024, or for prior fiscal years,” the representative said.

Analysts at Argus Research on Thursday downgraded the stock in the intermediate term to a hold, citing the Hindenburg note, reports of the Justice Department investigation and the departure of Super Micro’s accounting firm, which the analysts called a “serious matter.” Argus’ fears go beyond accounting irregularities, with the firm suggesting that the company may be doing business with problematic entities.

“The DoJ’s concerns, in our view, may be mainly about related-party transactions and about SMCI products ending up in the hands of sanctioned Russian companies,” the analysts wrote.

In September, the month after announcing its filing delay, Super Micro said it had received a notification from the Nasdaq indicating that its late status meant the company wasn’t in compliance with the exchange’s listing rules. Super Micro said the Nasdaq’s rules allowed the company 60 days to file its report or submit a plan to regain compliance. Based on that timeframe, the deadline would be mid-November.

Though Super Micro hasn’t filed financials with the SEC since May, the company said in an August earnings presentation that revenue more than doubled for a third straight quarter. Analysts expect that, for the fiscal first quarter ended September, revenue jumped more than 200% to $6.45 billion, according to LSEG. That’s up from $2.1 billion a year earlier and $1.9 billion in the same fiscal quarter of 2023.

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Apple to buy Pixelmator, the iPhone image editing app with AI features

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Apple to buy Pixelmator, the iPhone image editing app with AI features

Peopl walk outside Steve Jobs Theater at the Apple Park campus before Apple’s “It’s Glowtime” event in Cupertino, California, on Sept. 9, 2024.

Nic Coury | AFP | Getty Images

Apple will buy Pixelmator, the creator of image editing apps for Apple’s iPhone and Mac platforms, Pixelmator announced Friday in a blog post.

Pixelmator, a Lithuanian company, was founded in 2007, and in recent years has been best known for Pixelmator and Pixelmator Pro, which compete with Adobe Photoshop. It also makes Photomator, a photo editing app.

Apple has highlighted Pixelmator apps over the years in its keynote product launches. In 2018, Apple named Pixelmator Pro its Mac App of the year, citing the company’s enthusiastic embrace of Apple’s machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities, such as removing distracting objects from photos or making automated color adjustments.

We’ve been inspired by Apple since day one, crafting our products with the same razor-sharp focus on design, ease of use, and performance,” Pixelmator said in its blog post.

Apple does not acquire as many large companies as its Silicon Valley rivals. It prefers to make smaller acquisitions of companies with products or people that it can use to create Apple features. Neither Pixelmator nor Apple provided a price for the transaction.

Pixelmator said in its blog post that there “will be no material changes to the Pixelmator Pro, Pixelmator for iOS, and Photomator apps at this time.”

Earlier this week, Apple released the first version of Apple Intelligence, a suite of features that includes photo editing abilities such as Clean Up, which can remove people or objects from photos using AI.

Apple has acquired other popular apps that received accolades at the company’s product launches and awards ceremonies.

In 2020, Apple bought Dark Sky, a weather app that eventually became integrated into Apple’s default weather app. In 2017, it bought Workflow, an automation and macro app that eventually became Shortcuts, the iPhone’s scripting app, as well as the groundwork for a more capable Siri assistant.

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