In the universe of space investing, SpaceX is the leader. Valued at just $10 billion in 2015, when Fidelity and Google made their genius $1 billion investment in the company to help get Starlink started, SpaceX stock soared to reach $210 billion in total market capitalization earlier this year. That's a 20x return in under 10 years.
Given the wildfire success that is SpaceX, it makes sense that other companies would like to duplicate its success -- and that other billionaires such as Amazon's (NASDAQ: AMZN)Jeff Bezos would like to follow in SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's footsteps.
Doing so isn't cheap, however.
Bezos doubles down on Blue Origin
In 2000, Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin as a space start-up looking to lower the cost of space launch. According to information from S&P Global Market Intelligence, that was actually two years before Musk had a similar idea at SpaceX. Yet, SpaceX got off to a much faster start.
Perhaps inspired by SpaceX's success at attracting investment from Google, in 2015, Bezos accelerated Blue Origin's development by launching the company's first space vehicle, the New Shepard suborbital rocket. A couple of years later, Bezos shifted into even higher gear, telling investors that he was selling "about $1 billion of Amazon stock a year... to invest in Blue Origin."
Since then, Blue Origin hasn't accomplished a whole lot, or at least not a lot that's been visible from the outside. Aside from setting up a space tourism business and flying a few passengers to the edge of space, its efforts to build a lunar lander, a space tug, and especially a larger rocket -- the New Glenn -- have progressed slowly. But maybe some more money would help?
In a report out last week, Payload Space noted that Blue Origin's workforce has ballooned to 11,000 employees -- nearly as many as SpaceX's 14,000-strong workforce, despite SpaceX making much more progress in its space ventures. Unfortunately for Blue Origin (and Bezos), the estimated cost of keeping so many employees on payroll has also ballooned, to perhaps $2 billion a year or more.
With few revenues coming in to support such large expense, it's likely Bezos has had to at least double his financial support of the fledgling space company -- and employee salaries are only part of the expenses Blue Origin is incurring.
In Florida, the company has built a massive factory for churning out New Glenn rockets (albeit the rocket has yet to fly). Development costs for the New Glenn will be weighing on the company. There's also the cost of developing a new "Blue Ring" space tug (which will be the payload of the New Glenn's inaugural flight in November), a Blue Moon lunar lander, and the much ballyhooed Orbital Reef space station on which Blue Origin is collaborating.
It's little wonder, therefore, that Bezos' sales of Amazon stock are starting to hit a fever pitch -- $8.5 billion sold in February, with a further $5 billion in planned sales announced in July.
What Bezos is getting for his money
On the plus side, all these stock sales by its founder put Blue Origin in a stronger position to complete the several space projects it currently has in the works. On the minus side, even Bezos' wealth isn't infinite -- and it took a big hit from his 2019 divorce settlement. Eventually, Blue Origin itself is going to start having to pull some of its own weight, and generate some revenues to support all this investment it's doing. Can it succeed?
A successful launch of the New Glenn in November would help. That being said, we don't yet know how much Blue Origin will be charging for New Glenn rocket rides. If Blue Origin has to price match SpaceX's Falcon 9, for example, which lists for just under $70 million per launch, well, it'll need to win a lot of launch contracts to offset even just its $2 billion in salary costs.
The good news for Blue Origin is that its founder, Bezos, happens to have some pretty substantial ties to Amazon. Those ties probably played a (big) part in Blue Origin winning contracts from Amazon in 2022, to launch 12 New Glenn rockets carrying satellites for Amazon's Project Kuiper satellite internet project -- and win options for 15 launches more.
However, assuming a $70 million launch cost for New Glenn, all the revenue from all those 27 launches combined still won't offset a $2 billion payroll cost for Blue Origin. Simply put, Blue Origin is going to need to win new customers, and new contracts, in order for this business to be successful.
Even with a backer like Bezos behind it, success for Blue Origin is not guaranteed.
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Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet and Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
