SpaceX Reorganizes Data Center Leadership Team as Expansion Plans Face Reliability Challenges

SpaceX has reshuffled senior leadership in its data center construction team, replacing several managers with people mainly drawn from its rocket and satellite internet businesses. According to Sina Finance, people familiar with the matter said the move followed persistent civil engineering and operational reliability problems at existing data center facilities in Tennessee and Mississippi. SpaceX's AI unit, SpaceXAI, had prioritized speed in the early construction phase, and some facilities lacked backup cooling and power systems for months, increasing outage risk. Former Falcon rocket and Dragon spacecraft production vice president Wesley Salandro and Starbase launch site product support operations director Logan McConnell have joined the AI infrastructure team, while SpaceX has also brought in an engineer from Neuralink to help with civil engineering and continues hiring for related roles. Several core members of the data center team have recently left, including Jake Palmer, who handled physical infrastructure and departed at the end of July after joining in September 2025, as well as Zach Wells and Pablo Mendoza. Brent Mayo previously left for OpenAI, and Liz Balke, who joined from Tesla's Dojo supercomputer project, has moved to Anthropic. The personnel turnover has also increased uncertainty over the timetable for new data center construction. Beyond the Memphis hub, expansion plans in Texas and other locations have been delayed multiple times. Even so, SpaceX still views rapid construction and cost advantages as a core competitive strength ahead of its June IPO and plans to keep investing heavily in AI infrastructure. As of June, its online computing capacity was about 1.4 gigawatts, is expected to exceed 2 gigawatts by year-end, and Musk said it would rise sharply by the end of 2027.