Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla’s Elon Musk could be like chalk and cheese and may have businesses in direct competition with each other but the former shared his admiration for the latter in a recent podcast in which the former appeared as a guest.
What Happened: Bezos praised Musk’s leadership skills on the Lex Fridman Podcast, acknowledging that running companies like Tesla and SpaceX required a capable leader.
“There's no way you could have Tesla and SpaceX without being a capable leader. It's impossible,” the Amazon chairman said.
“I also know you can't know anyone by their public persona….You may think you do, but I guarantee you don't,” he added.
Fridman, the podcast host, highlighted Musk’s positive comments about Bezos and his space company, Blue Origin, during a previous episode. Expressing hope for a friendship between the two, Fridman suggested it could inspire humanity through their shared grand challenges.
Bezos responded, stating, “I agree with you, and I think in a lot of these endeavors, we're very like-minded. So I'm not saying we're identical, but I think we're very like-minded. And so I love that idea.”
See Also: How To Invest In SpaceX
Why It’s Important: Bezos’ Blue Origin and Musk’s SpaceX have the common goal of transporting people to space and back, with the latter taking one step ahead and working on settling humans on Mars.
Despite Bezos’ good word about his fellow billionaire, the two seem to have run-ins in the past. In Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk, the author has detailed encounters between the two. The two met in 2004 when Bezos accepted Musk’s invitation to take a tour of SpaceX. After a while, Bezos received a curt mail from the Tesla CEO about him not reciprocating by inviting him over to visit Blue Origin’s facility in Seattle.
When Bezos did finally invite Musk, the latter handed out an advice, which was brushed off by the former inconsequential, given Musk hadn’t yet launched a rocket by that time.
Later when Musk’s then-wife Justine wrote a horror thriller, the billionaire contacted Bezos to get Amazon review the book. Bezos clarified that Amazon does not do it and instead he personally wrote a customer review for the book.
The rivalry between the two precipitated when SpaceX won NASA contracts to take astronauts to the International Space Station in 2011 and the space agency leased the Pad 39A to SpaceX in 2013. Bezos subsequently legally challenged the award.
The two have also faced-off over several patent challenges. The title of the world’s richest man was traded between the two quite a number of times before finally it settled with Musk.
In his recent New York Times DealBook Summit appearance, Musk said SpaceX does not stifle competition. “Let me put it this way, if there was a button I could press that would delete Blue Origin, I wouldn't press it,” he said.
Read Next: Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin To Relaunch New Shepard Rocket After 15-Month Hiatus
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