layoffs
Bulletins

Virgin Hyperloop laid off half its staff and gave up on passenger transport

The company reportedly laid off more than 100 people after choosing to abandon its focus on passenger transport.

Virgin Hyperloop render

Virgin Hyperloop is reportedly shifting directions to cargo transport.

Photo: Virgin Hyperloop

Virgin Hyperloop laid off more than 100 of its employees on Friday after embracing a plan to focus on cargo transport over passengers, according to a Financial Times report.

Friday's layoffs came mostly because of supply chain issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the FT. Josh Giegel, the company's co-founder, left the company in October 2021 after seven years, which reportedly spurred other executive exits over the last few months.

Virgin Hyperloop is the only company to ever successfully transport passengers within a system of magnets and vacuum tubes that make up the often theoretical hyperloop technology, and the company has a contract with the Saudi Arabian government for the technology's development. Elon Musk's Boring Company has also proposed several hyperloop transport projects in the United States.

Virgin Hyperloop did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Anna Kramer

Anna Kramer is a reporter at Protocol (Twitter: @ anna_c_kramer, email: akramer@protocol.com), where she writes about labor and workplace issues. Prior to joining the team, she covered tech and small business for the San Francisco Chronicle and privacy for Bloomberg Law. She is a recent graduate of Brown University, where she studied International Relations and Arabic and wrote her senior thesis about surveillance tools and technological development in the Middle East.

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Bulletins