A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, carrying the Arabsat 6A communications satellite tv for pc, lifts off from the Kennedy House Middle in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on April 11, 2019.
Thom Baur | Reuters
One in all SpaceX’s senior executives is leaving, CNBC has realized, in a uncommon high-level departure from Elon Musk’s house firm.
Tom Ochinero, senior vp of business enterprise, resigned Monday, folks conversant in the matter informed CNBC. Ochinero is leaving to take care of a household medical matter, based on these folks, who requested to not be named in an effort to talk about inner firm data.
SpaceX didn’t reply to CNBC’s request for touch upon Ochinero’s departure.
Ochinero, like lots of SpaceX’s dozen or so senior executives, has been with the corporate for greater than a decade. He began his profession at SpaceX as an engineer, serving to design the nosecone used on its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.
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Since taking the lead on promoting SpaceX rockets and astronaut flights in 2019, Ochinero’s tenure included the regular growth of the corporate’s market share in launching business satellites, in addition to a number of offers for privately crewed spaceflights.
SpaceX Senior Vice President of Industrial Enterprise Tom Ochinero speaks at a satellite tv for pc trade convention in March 2023.
CNBC | Michael Sheetz
Ochinero was “personally liable for over a billion {dollars} of annual income” at SpaceX, based on a biography from an area trade convention late final yr. He reported to the corporate’s President and Chief Working Officer Gwynne Shotwell.
Stephanie Bednarek, SpaceX’s senior director of business launch gross sales, is being tapped to take Ochinero’s function on the firm, sources informed CNBC.
Ochinero’s departure comes as the corporate prepares for the third check flight of its next-generation Starship rocket and expands its Starlink satellite tv for pc web enterprise. The corporate has already established a close to monopoly on the U.S. satellite tv for pc launch market, attributable to its workhorse Falcon rockets and the struggles of rivals to area operational rockets to compete.
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