SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was one of the ‘Red Chair’ speakers at Code Conference 2021 in Beverly Hills, California earlier this week.
During his hour-long interview on Tuesday, the topic of Jeff Bezos came up as his rocket company Blue Origin is in the midst of a court battle over NASAs $2.9 billion lunar lander contract awarded to SpaceX earlier this year.
Musk commented on the matter by saying Bezos should focus his energy where it matters instead of filing lawsuits.
“I think I’ve expressed my thoughts on that front — I think he should put more of his energy into getting to orbit, [rather] than lawsuits. You cannot sue your way to the moon, no matter how good your lawyers are,” Musk said.
The comments apparently struck a nerve within Bezos. On Wednesday Amazon sent an unsolicited 13-page PDF to multiple media outlets outlining all of the court actions Musk and SpaceX have taken since 2004.
In an email sent with the list, a company spokesperson said it proves Musk was hypocritical in his comments given his track record.
“Attached is a list of some of the times SpaceX has sued the U.S. government on procurement matters and protested various governmental decisions. It is difficult to reconcile their own historical record with their recent position on others filing similar actions.” (via The Verge)
While the list did contain an accurate record of lawsuits and actions SpaceX has filed over the years, there is one key difference between how the two companies have acted. This was pointed out soon after by Musk himself on Twitter.
SpaceX has sued to be *allowed* to compete, BO is suing to stop competition
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 29, 2021
Blue Origin isn’t the only Bezos company fighting Musk in court. Amazon has also asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to dismiss SpaceX’s second-generation Starlink constellation amendments.
Amazon noted the proposals broke FCC rules that require details of a proposed amendment to be settled before filing such an application.
