SpaceX and Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk on Friday took yet another potshot at Amazon.com Inc AMZN founder and the billionaire space venture rival Jeff Bezos.
What Happened: Musk was responding to a post on Twitter that cited the growing rivalry between Musk and Bezos and said that it seems Bezos has retired from his position at the e-commerce giant Amazon to "pursue a full-time job filing lawsuits against SpaceX."
The Latest Objection: Amazon has in a protest letter to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission asked the agency to dismiss SpaceX’s plans to develop its second-generation Starlink network, claiming it breaks the regulator’s rules on satellite deployment.
“SpaceX’s novel approach of applying for two mutually exclusive configurations is at odds with both the Commission’s rules and public policy and we urge the Commission to dismiss this amendment,” the letter to the FCC says.
SpaceX’s Starlink is currently in the beta phase and is a service that is designed to beam down fast-speed internet, especially in remote areas, from satellites in orbit to Earth. Amazon too is developing its own satellite internet system called Project Kuiper but it is yet to take off.
Why It Matters: Musk and Bezos have been engaged in a bitter war of words over their competing space ventures. The two billionaires are in a race to make both space travel and high-speed, satellite-based internet more affordable.
The latest protest letter comes on the heels of NASA's decision to temporarily halt work on a $2.9 billion lunar lander contract awarded to Tesla.
The work was stopped after Bezos's space venture Blue Origin sued the agency over the lunar lander contract. Blue Origin’s bid was valued at $5.9 billion, nearly twice as much as SpaceX’s bid.
Price Action: Amazon shares closed 0.51% higher at $3,316 on Thursday, while those of Tesla shares closed 1.41% lower at $701.16.
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Photo: Courtesy of JD Lasica via Wikimedia
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