Elon Musk isn’t happy that fellow mega-billionaire Jeff Bezos keeps suing to stop SpaceX’s projects, and he shared a message for the Amazon founder during the 2021 Code Conference on Tuesday: “you cannot sue your way to the Moon, no matter how good your lawyers are.”
Musk was responding to a question from journalist Kara Swisher about how Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin, recently sued to block a contract NASA gave SpaceX to develop a lunar lander. Amazon has also protested SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites with the Federal Communications Commission.
Swisher asked Musk Tuesday if he has spoken to Bezos about the legal fights. “Not verbally, just… subtweets,” Musk said. (In August, Musk tweeted: “Turns out Besos [sic] retired in order to pursue a full-time job filing lawsuits against SpaceX …”)
Musk wasn’t all vinegar with regards to his billionaire space race cohort. When Swisher asked him about the suborbital flights that Bezos and Richard Branson recently took with their own companies, Musk said he “thought it was cool that they’re spending money on the advancement of space.” But, he was sure to point out, “suborbital is [just] a step in the direction of orbit.”
