Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos two billionaires with deep pockets thriving businesses and sky-high ambitions!
While Bezos is the king of e-commerce and Musk a titan of tech the pair have crossed paths more times than I’m sure they would like Igniting a few laced with jet fuel that really started to heat up despite Bezos and Musk rising up through two completely different industries. Their interests did eventually clash triggering what we like to consider the new era space race.
You see Jeff Bezos is the CEO and founder of Blue Origin an innovative aerospace manufacturer that's striving to make space exploration cheaper on the other hand Elon Musk is the CEO and founder of Space X an innovative aerospace manufacturer that's also striving to make space exploration cheaper.
I'm sure you can see why this is causing some friction but it hasn't always been Musk in the red corner. Bezos in the Blue in fact they even shared dinner together in 2004 to discuss ideas about their pioneering space endeavours. When both space companies were in their infancy the pair didn't have all that much to measure up against.
Bezos started Blue Origin in 2000 and Musk got Space X off the ground in 2002 however it wasn't until many years later either would actually launch something resembling a rocket while both companies threw some weight around in the same industry for over a decade the clash only started to gain some real momentum in 2013 when NASA decided to offer up its historic launch site complex 39a.
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The 39a pad served as the starting point for countless space missions spanning as far back as the 1960s including the infamous Apollo 11 in 1969. After NASA retired its shuttle fleet in 2011 they decided it was time to hand the facilities management over to a private company saving taxpayers around $100,000 a month in upkeep costs alone.
So when the tried and tested launch facility came up for grabs in 2013 complete with NASA built infrastructure both men obviously wanted to take advantage of the opportunity.
Musk proposed using the facility to launch Space X's falcon 9 rocket and eventually the falcon heavy rocket that was still yet to be built. Space X was already launching the falcon 9 from a nearby pad for satellite missions and taxiing cargo to the international space station.
The proposal also hinted at future launches carrying NASA astronauts to the station as well while Musk intended to use the launch site mostly for Space X endeavours, Bezos and Blue Origin took a different approach.
Blue Origin proposed managing 39a as a multi-user facility saying that they would offer the pad to other rocket companies to use while they work towards making use of it at a later date essentially Bezos wanted to rent and Musk was all ready to go tilting the scales in his favor feeling a little behind. Musk really squeezed Bezos his inner lemon so in a bitter response he partnered up with the united launch alliance to file a formal protest with the government to void Musk's application they pleaded that Musk's plans to use the launch site exclusively for Space X were unfair after all sharing is caring!
Musk dubbed it a load of bs and a phony blocking tactic stating that Space X was open to sharing the site with NASA and other private companies if necessary. After a few back and forth NASA eventually moved forward into negotiations finalizing a deal with Musk coming into 2014 leaving Bezos out of the picture entirely.
So it was one-to-nil in Musk's favor but this was just the beginning and less than a year later the two were firing shots once again. Bezos had previously filed patents for technology to build reusable rockets that land on a sea going platform the kind that can take off and land multiple times in its usable life a key component of making space travel more affordable.
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Despite Space X being the industry leader and already testing a number of small takeoff and landing rockets if or when they succeeded in making one fully operational they would be forced to pay Bezos and Blue Origin settlement litigation or licensing fees. Musk being a big player didn't fancy the idea of shelling out cash to his competitor so disputed the patent profusely stating that the idea of launching a rocket and landing it vertically is an old one Musk even mustered up some old sci-fi footage that showed space rockets landing on boats explaining that the Blue Origin patents were a demonstration of old ideas and repeated technologies. Musk continued to fight his corner and on September the 1st 2015 he reigned victorious when all 15 points of Bezos's patent were finally cancelled up.
Until this point the feud between Musk and Bezos was mostly private but by the end of 2015 things started to go public back and forth on Twitter.
On November the 23rd 2015 Blue Origin successfully launched and landed its new Shepard rocket marking them the first company to successfully fly a sub orbital booster to space and return it safely back to earth for landing. Bezos made his way to twitter and said the rarest of beasts a used rocket controlled landing not easy but done right can look easy alongside a short video clip.
Musk responded with a tweet of congratulations but he couldn't just leave it at that. He went on to say that it's important to clear up the differences between space and orbit explaining that it takes speeds of Mach 3 to get to space which is what Blue Origin achieved and Mach 30 to get into orbit which is what Musk said he was on track to achieve.
He also stated that rocketing up a payload and bringing the booster back for landing is going to take 100 times more energy. In short Musk was telling Bezos good job buddy but your little Blue Origin is not even in the same league as my Space X. Just a month later Musk did exactly what he said. He would by sending a payload into space and returning the booster safely back for landing.
The friction between the two increased and the frequency of the public bickering continued a few years later and the beef is still in full swing. At a private lecture in Newyork, Bezos threw a steaming hot bowl of criticism at Musk's goal to colonize Mars.
He said, my friends who want to move to Mars, I say do me a favour go live on the top of Mount Everest for a year first and see if you like it because it's a garden paradise compared to Mars.
He also went on to say that we i.e Musk should focus on going to the Moon as launching from the Moon will be the quickest way to get to the red planet skipping out the Moon is seductive but wrong rather convenient comments seeing as Blue Origin also revealed their first Lunar Lander named the Blue Moon the same year.
Also Read: SpaceX vs Blue Origin The Space Race Explained
To poke back a little fun Musk tweeted a picture of Bezos Blue Moon editing the name to read Blue Balls. Later saying that putting the word Blue on anything massive and Ball shaped is a terrible branding choice a cheap laugh but a good dig all the same.
Another round of tweets occurred just a month prior to the Blue Balls event after Bezos tweeted about Amazon plans to launch more than 3000 satellites to provide internet to unserved and underserved communities. Musk announced basically the same thing with Starlink back in 2018.
So saw it fit to publicly call Bezos a copycat using emojis. Of course the Bezos and Musk saga continues well into 2020 and is showing zero signs of slowing down.
Elon Musk tweeted on June the 4th that it's time to break up Amazon and the monopolies are wrong tagging Bezos who is currently the richest man in the world. Musk's tweet was in response to a writer who said that his book “Unreported truths about Covid 19 and the lockdown” was being removed from Amazon for violating unspecified guidelines.
After Musk spoke out to his 30 million followers, an Amazon spokeswoman stated the book was removed in error and was subsequently put back onto the Amazon store.
Bezos had no comment on the matter despite not getting any replies from the Amazon founder Musk redeployed the pussycat for a second swipe just a couple of weeks later. The tweet came after Amazon acquired Zukes a self-driving car startup for a little over 1.2 billion dollars in June of 2020.
Musk and his team at Tesla have been tirelessly developing autonomous driving systems for years cementing themselves as the industry leaders sure they have a few competitors but they are way out in front of the pack for the time being Zukes is already viewed as a progressive up and coming company in the field of autonomous cars.
The huge influx in capital that Amazon will surely pump into the venture could mean a new ping on Tesla's radar so a copycat tweet was the obvious go-to this time followed by a haha.
The Bezos and Musk feud has spanned over decades sometimes serious, sometimes harmless however things are inevitably going to start escalating both men are incredibly powerful and they certainly have the capital to back it up now that the pair share not only the Space exploration sector but also the internet and self-driving car sector.
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They could start clashing heads ever more frequently believe it or not this is potentially great news for all of us and not just on the entertainment front. Competition of this calibre means progress and urgency. With Bezos pushing Musk and Musk pushing Bezos these new emerging technologies will likely get to us sooner be better and potentially be cheaper too.
Let's just hope one doesn't bankrupt the other in the process. So that was all in todays post. Hope you guys got something valuable in this and if you liked reading this one we are sure you will enjoy our other similar post as well. Do check those out and don’t forget to share this post with your friends and family who might like it too just as you did.
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