French Media Blames SpaceX For 2,500 Airbus Layoffs As Elon Musk Leads Rocket Race

Boeing was humiliated after NASA called up Elon Musk’s SpaceX for assistance in a future rescue mission to retrieve two stranded Starliner crew members at the International Space Station, slated for early 2025. SpaceX soared ahead of Boeing’s space program by lightyears, as Starship launches and Starlink deployments show, and is also outpacing Airbus’s space division.

On Wednseday, Airbus announced its defense and space divisions would experience significant cuts, upwards of 2,500 workers over the next couple of years.

Airbus Defence and Space is announcing plans to adapt the Division’s organisation and workforce in light of a continued complex business environment, especially in the Space Systems segment where significant financial charges were recorded in 2023 and 2024.

Intended measures will include creating a more effective and efficient organisational structure for the Division, especially with regard to headquartered functions, as well as a full operative end-to-end accountability for its business lines Air Power, Space Systems and Connected Intelligence.

It is expected that these measures will result in a reduction of up to 2,500 positions within Airbus Defence and Space until mid 2026.

As Boeing and now Airbus have found out, SpaceX has become the global leader in rocket launches and LEO satellite deployment, even beating out entire nation-states like China and Russia.

Using data from BryceTech, SpaceX launched 525 spacecraft into orbit in the first quarter, far outpacing China and Russia.