There is always a fear of losing revenue and customers, or going bankrupt, when running a big business in a competitive environment, the same seems to be happening with billionaire Elon Musk.
On Twitter, Musk said that SpaceX needs to come up with many next-generation Starship engines soon to keep growing its Starlink broadband constellation and eventually, stay in business.
Musk tweeted, “If a severe global recession were to dry up capital availability / liquidity while SpaceX was losing billions on Starlink (and) Starship, then bankruptcy, while still unlikely, is not impossible.”
The statement seems to have been given in response to a leaked email, which was sent by the billionaire to employees over the Thanksgiving holiday in the US. In it, Musk asked for “all hands-on deck.”
The email talked about a “production crisis” within the company. SpaceX looks to fly a Starship prototype to space in 2022.
“The consequences for SpaceX if we cannot get enough reliable Raptors made is that we then can’t fly Starship, which means we then can’t fly Starlink Satellite V2. Satellite V1, by itself, is financially weak, while V2 is strong,” reads the email, which was first obtained by SpaceExplored.
Musk warned in the email that SpaceX could face “genuine risk of bankruptcy if we cannot achieve a Starship flight rate of at least once every two weeks next year.”