Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has taken over CEO of 9-year-old Rocket Startup, Relativity Space. This is Schmidt’s first CEO job since leaving Google nearly 15 years ago.
Schmidt told employees on Monday that he had invested heavily and had control of the company, the New York Times first reported.
Schmidt will take over the startup co-founder Tim Ellis as CEO. In an X post, Ellis said he will continue to support the relativity space as director of the company’s board.
Schmidt is taking part in conjunction with Relativity Space for the 2026 launch of the Terran R, a larger rocket than the startup’s previous launch. In anticipation of the first launch of the Terran R, Relativity Space has hit nearly $3 billion in launch agreements with customers, Times reported.
Schmidt was Google CEO for about 10 years. He ended up leading a rapidly growing search company in 2001 as Google’s board put pressure on young founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page to allow experienced business leaders to take the reins.
Now, Schmidt will become CEO of the Relativity Space at a key moment in the company’s history. He may offer both Capital and Experience rocket startups to guide it through the launch of the Terran R. Furthermore, Schmidt is very well connected in Washington, DC.
The Relativity Space is known for producing rockets using abnormal technologies, including the use of 3D printers, automatic robots and artificial intelligence. The company previously announced plans to launch its first private space mission on Mars by 2024. However, certain challenges have delayed these bold milestones.
In 2023, Relativity Space successfully launched the Terran 1 Rocket, demonstrating that 3D printing technology can work effectively. However, Terran 1 was unable to reach orbit. A month later, the startup announced that it would be cancelling Terran 1 to focus entirely on the development of Terran 1.
Bloomberg reported previously. Previous investors in the relativity space include Mark Cuban, BlackRock and Fidelity.
Running a Rocket Company is completely different from managing a search engine company, but Schmidt has proven to be a valuable operator in the past who can effectively grow a startup. With fierce competition in the space industry from companies like SpaceX, Rocket Lab and Blue Origin, it appears that the space of relativity could benefit from people like Schmidt.
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