THIS MIGHT BE THE STUPIDEST DAMN THING POLITICO HAS EVER PUBLISHED, AND THAT’S REALLY SAYING SOMETHING: Musk gets a leg up from Trump in space battle vs. Bezos.
Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have been locked in a bitter rivalry for supremacy in space exploration. Donald Trump’s return to the White House could boost Musk’s ascent.
As it stands, Musk’s SpaceX is the competition’s undisputed leader: It regularly sends astronauts into orbit, while Bezos’ Blue Origin has yet to launch anyone beyond the outer edge of space.
But Bezos’ company, even if far behind SpaceX, is seen as its closest American competitor, and the two companies have clashed in court over billions of dollars in government funding. More recently, their battle has become increasingly bitter, as the billionaires themselves traded barbs on Musk-owned X.
Now, as Musk spends weeks palling around with Trump at Mar-a-Lago after the election, their proximity has the space industry fearing that Musk could rig the space race in his favor by diverting billions of dollars in government funding to SpaceX. The chief threat to SpaceX’s peers is that Musk will aim to create a monopoly in the private space industry.
Blue Origin has yet to put a single kilo of mass into orbit, much less catch up to the reusability standard set by Falcon 9 almost eight years ago. Meanwhile, with Starship, Musk is working on reducing the cost to orbit by two orders of magnitude.
Politico is indulging in the stupidest kind of scaremongering in a story that was probably shopped around by the same “space industry lobbyist granted anonymity” it quotes spouting off nonsense like this gem: “You’re talking about two of the most unpredictable people in the world getting together. It’s not like chocolate and peanut butter, and you get a great combination. You’re talking about world dominance here.”
This next graf is the big tell:
On Capitol Hill, Blue Origin is trying to raise alarms about potential unfair advantages in the space race. The company has been arguing that any policy that crowds out competition and capacity in civil or military space business could hurt the country’s space program and national security, according to the person who works with Blue Origin. Another person familiar with Blue Origin’s Washington strategy said the company has been trying to remind those on the Hill that its technology will be flying soon and intends to be a competitor.
Blue Origin hasn’t been able to compete so the company is crying to Capitol Hill — and garbage publications like Politico are happy to help.