Elon Musk aims another jibe at Jeff Bezos in billionaires’ space row: ‘You can’t sue your way to the moon’

‘I think he should put more of his energy into getting to orbit, [rather] than lawsuits’

Elon Musk also mocked the shape of Blue Origin’s New Shepard, the rocket that Jeff Bezos recently flew to space in (Getty Images)

Elon Musk has taken another jibe at Jeff Bezos after the Amazon founder lost a deal with Nasa and sued the American government for it, in what is turning out to be an extended, bitter feud between the two richest men in the world.

Musk’s SpaceX won a spacecraft deal with Nasa in April for which Bezos’ Blue Origin was also competing. However, the decision was legally challenged by the Amazon founder. As their respective companies battled in federal court, the billionaires continued sparring outside.

Speaking at the CodeCon 2021 conference with journalist Kara Swisher in Beverly Hills on Tuesday, Musk told Bezos that he could not sue his way to the moon.

When Ms Swisher asked him what he thinks about the dispute over Nasa deal, Musk raised an eyebrow and said: “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,” he added.

The bitter spat didn’t end there, as Amazon issued a statement on Thursday responding to Musk’s dig.

“SpaceX has a long track record of suing the US government on procurement matters and protesting various governmental decisions. It is difficult to reconcile that historical record with their recent position on others filing similar actions,” an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC.

Musk, however, quickly took to Twitter and said: “SpaceX has sued to be *allowed* to compete, BO [Blue Origin] is suing to stop competition.”

During the interview with Ms Swisher, Musk also mocked the shape of Blue Origin’s New Shepard, the rocket that Bezos recently flew to space in. He made a brief, suborbital trip in July, soon after Richard Branson’s trip to space. But all anyone could talk about was the phallic shape of New Shepard, which also became an instant meme.

When asked by Ms Swisher about the shape of the rocket, Musk said: “I think it could be a different shape potentially.” When the interviewer pressed about the technical justifications for New Shepard’s shape, Musk added: “If you’re only going suborbital, your rocket can be shorter.”

This isn’t the first public spat between these men with space ambitions.

Musk has called the Amazon founder a “copycat” on two accounts earlier. Bezos challenges the South African entrepreneur in space technology with Blue Origin and in the field of self-driving cars after acquiring Zoox to take on Tesla.

The $2.9bn Nasa deal at the centre of the latest spat was won by SpaceX in April, under which the company will build advanced spacecraft to take astronauts to the moon’s surface, for the first time since the Apollo mission in 1972.

Bezos’ Blue Origin, along with one another company, also sent their proposals to Nasa, and were selected in the preliminary stage. But Nasa picked SpaceX, reportedly due to budget and other reasons. However, it did not just anger Bezos but also raised questions about the lack of competition.

The repeated attempts to win back the lander contract have drawn mockery from Mr Musk, who joked in a tweet that “if lobbying and lawyers could get [you] to orbit, Bezos would be on Pluto [right now]”.

Nasa has accused Blue Origin of threatening to destroy the “once-in-a-generation momentum” to resume human space exploration through its costly and lengthy legal disputes.