Raphael Stevens

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Sierra Space are navigating a potential end to the Orbital Reef space station partnership, according to three people who spoke to CNBC about the situation.
Discussions are ongoing and CNBC sources described the situation as fluid.
Shortly after unveiling the Orbital Reef project in 2021, Blue Origin won a $130 million contract from NASA for design work on the private space station.

A rendering of the “Orbital Reef” space station in orbit.
Blue Origin

The Orbital Reef space station partnership between Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Sierra Space is on rocky footing, CNBC has learned.
The companies announced Orbital Reef as a co-led project in 2021, but updates about the project dried up in the past year. The pair of private space companies are now navigating a potential end to the Orbital Reef partnership, according to three people who spoke to CNBC about the situation.

Those people, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic matters, emphasized that discussions are ongoing and described the situation as fluid. But other development projects with more significant current contracts – such as Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lunar lander and Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser spaceplane – have taken higher priority for both companies, those people said.
It’s becoming increasingly likely that Blue Origin and Sierra Space will go their separate ways, leaving behind joint efforts to develop Orbital Reef, according to those sources.

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Shortly after unveiling the Orbital Reef project, Blue Origin won a $130 million contract from NASA for design work on the private space station. That contract was one of three funded Space Act Agreements (SAA) that NASA issued for the first phase of its Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) program.
Blue is the prime contractor under that NASA award, with Sierra as a subcontractor.
NASA spokesperson Rebecca Wickes told CNBC in a statement that the agency has so far paid Blue Origin $24 million of the total contract amount for completing specified milestones. As of yet “there are no current plans to transfer the agreement,” Wickes said.

Sierra did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment on Orbital Reef. Neither did Blue Origin, but the company, shortly after being reached by CNBC, posted on social media that it is making “progress on our Commercial Destinations Space Act Agreement with NASA.”
“Our team is currently testing window frames and materials in a relevant space environment,” Blue Origin said, without mentioning Orbital Reef by name.

Orbital Reef erosion

An artist’s rendering of a commercial space station in orbit.
Sierra Space

Blue originally unveiled Orbital Reef alongside Sierra, envisioning a “mixed use business park” in space. The first major pieces of Orbital Reef were scheduled to launch in 2027, with the companies aiming to begin service around the time the International Space Station retires near the end of the decade.
Habitable space stations have long been an interest for Blue Origin, with Bezos’ vision for the company to create a future where “millions of people are living and working in space to benefit Earth.” Similarly, Sierra has been developing an habitat concept for years, known as LIFE (“Large Integrated Flexible Environment”).
Several companies are also working to build private space stations, with competing projects being led by Axiom, Voyager Space, Northrop Grumman and Vast.
The Orbital Reef team also includes Boeing, Redwire, Amazon, Genesis Engineering Solutions, and Arizona State University underneath Blue and Sierra.
Orbital Reef is not seen as a top priority for either company, according to three people familiar with the companies. Two of those sources pointed CNBC to a shift in Blue Origin’s interests after the company won a $3.4 billion NASA contract to build a crew lunar lander – noting its space station and lunar lander programs compete for resources in the same business unit.
Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith is leaving at the end of the year and new leader Dave Limp will need to execute on other major projects – including its New Shepard and New Glenn rockets, as well as its BE-4 engine production.
Similarly, much of Sierra’s resources are devoted to getting the initial cargo variation of its reusable Dream Chaser spaceplane flying. It has been developing Dream Chaser for more than a decade, under contract to fly cargo for NASA to the International Space Station.
The company earlier this week raised $290 million in new funding and hopes to fly Dream Chaser to the ISS for the first time next year.
There have been signs the Orbital Reef project was unraveling: The website for the project, created jointly by Blue and Sierra, hasn’t published an update on the station’s development in more than a year. As of Thursday, neither company’s careers websites have job openings that mention “Orbital Reef,” despite having dozens of listings mention the project in the past. And Sierra Space dropped references to Orbital Reef in its most recent press releases, focusing solely on its own habitat work.
From NASA’s viewpoint, changes to the structure or involvement of different companies in the first phase of a project like this one are not surprising. For example, Northrop Grumman didn’t rejoin Blue Origin’s team when the company bid a second time for a crew lunar lander. And, more relevant to the CLD program, another space station project called Starlab saw Airbus take the place of Lockheed Martin as the core habitat’s builder.
For its part, Sierra has continued to test and develop LIFE – an inflatable module that made up a major part of the Orbital Reef architecture. Sierra has regularly posted updates about milestones in testing habitats, such as a recent “burst” testing of a sub-scale prototype. Last month, Sierra announced plans to launch a “pathfinder” demonstration mission of its LIFE (Large Integrated Flexible Environment) habitat in 2026. More

The National Football league responded to a report that its ads appeared on white nationalist X accounts.
The NFL didn’t indicate any plans to pull ads from the platform but did say it reached out to X to “rectify the issue.”
Watchdog groups have criticized Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter, for failing to monitor and remove hate speech.

Harun Ozalp | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

The National Football League on Thursday responded to a recent report that pointed out its ads were placed on white nationalist feeds on Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, formerly known as Twitter.
“NFL unequivocally denounces any form of hate speech and has absolutely no association with these individuals or any group that promotes racism,” NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy told NBC Sports’ Pro Football Talk. “As soon as this was brought to our attention, we immediately expressed our concerns to X to understand and rectify the issue.”

The NFL did not indicate if it would pull ads from the platform, or if X would remove the ads from the white nationalist accounts. X’s press relations email responded with an automated response when CNBC asked for comment: “Busy now, please check back later.”
Left-leaning media watchdog site MediaMatters.org first reported on the ad placements Wednesday. X shares a portion of ad revenue to owners of eligible accounts in which ads appear, if the owner opts in. Media Matters found five white nationalist accounts, with a total of one million followers, where NFL ads appeared.
Since Musk bought the social media company last year, watchdog groups have criticized the company for failing to monitor and remove hate speech.
X has fought back, suing the Center for Countering Digital Hate during the summer, arguing the group illegally accessed company data to claim that harmful content overwhelmed the platform. Earlier this month, the CCDH released a new report saying X continuously fails to remove hate speech and other harmful content from the platform despite being notified the content violated the platform’s hateful conduct guidelines.
The NFL’s statement Thursday comes days after Brian Rolapp, the NFL’s chief media and business officer, praised X and its CEO, Linda Yaccarino. “They are doing great work innovating to make the platform better for @NFLfans and partners,” he posted on the platform.
Yaccarino struggled to answer key questions regarding company matters, including hate speech and antisemitism, at Vox Media’s 2023 Code Conference on Wednesday. When asked about complaints regarding antisemitism on the platform, Yaccarino responded, “Everybody deserves to speak their opinion.” More

The league dominated the headlines over the summer as Saudi clubs cumulatively spent more than $1 billion in transfer fees and attracted some of the biggest names from Europe’s top leagues.
Speaking to CNBC at the APOS conference in Bali, Indonesia, on Thursday, Nohra said that Saudi Arabia’s strategy is “extremely long term,” but that the acquisition of players was the first step.

The big-spending Saudi Pro League is aiming to build its global broadcasting presence and become one of the top 10 soccer leagues in the world, its chief operating officer, Carlo Nohra, told CNBC on Thursday.
The league dominated the sports headlines over the summer as Saudi clubs cumulatively spent more than $1 billion in transfer fees and attracted some of the biggest names from Europe’s top leagues with mammoth contract offers.

Brazilian superstar Neymar and Senegalese forward Sadio Mane followed the previous arrivals of former Ballon D’Or winners Karim Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo, along with a host of other stars from the English Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, Germany’s Bundesliga, Italy’s Serie A and France’s Ligue 1.
Speaking to CNBC at the APOS conference in Bali, Indonesia, on Thursday, Nohra said that Saudi Arabia’s strategy is “extremely long term,” but that the acquisition of players was the first step.
“While that helps us grow on the pitch, the idea is to grow off the pitch and to commercialize as well, so the strategy takes in every element that we need to focus on to get the Saudi Pro League to where it aspires to be among the top 10 leagues in the world,” he said.

The kingdom’s massive investment in sport is part of a broader effort to diversify its economy away from oil by investing in commercial infrastructure to become a tourism, leisure and entertainment powerhouse.
It is also being used to bolster the country’s global reputation, with critics arguing that the ultimate aim of Saudi Arabia’s investment in soccer, golf, boxing, motor racing, and many other sport and entertainment ventures is to distract from its dismal human rights record.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in a recent interview with Fox News, embraced accusations of “sportswashing” and said he did not care about the criticism, so long as the massive sporting investments ultimately yielded a positive contribution to Saudi GDP growth.
Nohra explained that the objectives handed down to the Saudi Pro League’s bosses were to firstly improve on-pitch performance through the acquisition of world-class players, to fill the country’s stadia and ultimately to drive the commercialization of the vastly improved overall product.

“We had a long, hard look at ourselves, we’ve discovered that we need to improve the governance of the league, we need to improve the product itself and the commercialization of that product, better understanding of our fans,” he said.
“The player acquisition presented some issues that needed to be addressed, the clubs’ capabilities needed to improve so we’ve looked at that as well, and equally how we’re organized as a league in order to compete at the global level.”
Along with the domestic revenues the government is hoping to generate through in-person match attendance, capitalizing on Saudi Arabia’s young population’s love of the sport, Nohra also said the Saudi Pro League was looking to expand its broadcast presence around the world.
“Since the introduction of Cristiano Ronaldo into the league in January, we’ve seen global distribution expand to unprecedented levels for Saudi soccer, and through the acquisitions this summer, we’ve had renewals across the board with now the needle moving on the commercialization of those rights across the world,” he said.
“So we’re delighted with where we are at the moment but we still need to continue to deliver for fans across the world what they now wish to have from Saudi football.” More

Ryan Cohen was appointed the company’s CEO, president and chairman and won’t receive compensation for his work.
The move comes more than three months after GameStop fired then-CEO Matthew Furlong.
Shares of GameStop surged after the announcement.

GameStop said Thursday morning that billionaire activist investor Ryan Cohen would take over as the video game retailer’s chief executive, chairman and president effective immediately — and he won’t be collecting a salary.
Shares of the company jumped more than 6% in premarket trading following the announcement.

GameStop’s board, with Cohen abstaining, unanimously voted to appoint the entrepreneur as the retailer’s top executive on Wednesday. Cohen had previously held the title of executive chairman but will step down from the role upon his latest appointment, according to a securities filing.
Cohen won’t “receive any compensation” for his work, a news release said.
The move comes more than three months after GameStop fired CEO Matthew Furlong, made Cohen executive chairman and appointed longtime company soldier Mark Robinson as its “principal executive officer” and general manager. GameStop didn’t give a reason for Furlong’s dismissal at the time, but it came just months after the company had reported its first quarterly profit in two years with Furlong at the helm.
Several weeks later, the company announced that CFO Diana Saadeh-Jajeh was resigning.

GameStop Chairman Ryan Cohen.
Source: CNBC

With the latest move, Cohen will also assume the role of principal executive officer from Robinson. He previously served as general counsel and secretary, and he added principal executive officer to his list of duties back in June. Now, he will resume as just general counsel and secretary, according to a securities filing.

Cohen, who founded pet food retailer Chewy and has become known as the “king” of meme stocks, bought a stake in GameStop in 2020 and joined the board in 2021 – during the height of the meme phenomenon.
As of late June, his firm RC Ventures was GameStop’s largest shareholder with a 12.09% stake, according to FactSet.
Since Cohen joined the company, the business hasn’t shown many signs of a turnaround, albeit with some exceptions. Earlier this month, GameStop reported its second-quarter financial results, posting a narrower loss than it did a year ago, as well as a slight increase in revenue.
Read the release here. More

Delta earlier this month started making it harder for many customers to earn elite status and get into airport lounges.
Delta’s CEO Ed Bastian earlier this week vowed “modifications” to the recent program overhaul after a backlash from customers.

Delta Air Lines Boeing 717-200 airplane as seen on the final approach landing at New York JFK John F. Kennedy International Airport, NYC, USA.
NurPhoto / Contributor

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said the airline will make “modifications” in the next few weeks to its loyalty program after a recently announced overhaul that would make it more expensive for many travelers to earn elite status and get into airport lounges was met with a backlash from customers.
“No question we probably went too far,” Bastian said at the Rotary Club of Atlanta on Monday.

The program changes, which Delta unveiled earlier this month, would reward customers with elite status based on how much they spent, a model similar to that of American Airlines, and reduce access to Delta popular airport Sky Club lounges for many American Express cardholders.
JetBlue Airways tried to capitalize on some customers’ anger over Delta’s changes by offering frequent flyer status matching, saying, “we’ve made it easy for you to cozy up to a new loyalty program and see where it goes.”
Delta has been grappling with a surge in elite travelers, bolstered by Covid pandemic and post-pandemic spending, and swarms of travelers trying to get into its lounges, leading to long lines for many customers. The airline and rivals including American and United have been racing to build bigger airport lounges to cater to swelling numbers of big spenders.
Bastian said the airline will announce the updated program changes in the coming weeks. A Delta spokesman declined to comment further on the changes.
“It’s gotten to the point, honestly, where we have so much demand for our premium product and services that are far in excess of our ability to serve it effectively in terms of our assets,” Bastian said.

He said that over Covid, the airline has doubled the number of Diamond Medallion status members.
David Neeleman, CEO of Breeze Airways and founder of JetBlue, told CNBC on Wednesday that he has Delta Medallion status and that he tries to use Delta’s airport lounges but that sometimes “there’s a big line and it’s not worth it.”
Delta last year announced several changes to crack down on overcrowding at the clubs, such as barring employees from using them when flying standby with company travel privileges, even if they had qualifying credit cards. The Atlanta-based carrier also raised prices for club memberships for regular customers. More