Jeff Bezos doubles time with Blue Origin to focus more on his space company
Jeff Bezos has called Blue Origin his life's most important work — and the hours he is devoting to the space company are growing accordingly.
Bezos has long dedicated Wednesday afternoons to either updates or discussions at Blue Origin, people familiar with the situation told CNBC — meetings that were in person before the Covid pandemic and have been by phone since. However, within the past month he has added Tuesday afternoons as well, those people said.
While Bezos' increased engagement with the company has been previously reported, just how much he's involved with Blue Origin has not. Because Bezos is one of the richest people in the world and still involved at Amazon as the company's executive chairman, demands on his time are high, so spending twice as much time with his space company represents a significant added commitment.
His doubled effort comes at a critical moment in Blue Origin's history. The company is locked in a fierce court battle over NASA's award of a multibillion-dollar lunar lander contract to Elon Musk's SpaceX, a key customer of its BE-4 rocket engines is becoming increasingly vocal after years of delay, Blue Origin's first orbital rocket is similarly years behind schedule, and its suborbital space research and tourism business is now underway in earnest.
