By Katherine Wiles
Amazon’s protest letter, which is not a lawsuit, says that SpaceX broke the FCC’s rules by applying for two satellite configurations, as opposed to just one
Elon Musk is making waves on Twitter again, as he is apt to do. This time, the billionaire Tesla TSLA and SpaceX founder has called out fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos.
“Turns out Besos [sic] retired in order to pursue a full-time job filing lawsuits against SpaceX …” Musk tweeted, misspelling Bezos’ name.
The tweet came in response to an article about Amazon AMZN urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deny SpaceX’s plan for a second generation of its Starlink satellites.
Amazon’s protest letter, which is not a lawsuit, says that SpaceX broke the FCC’s rules by applying for two satellite configurations, as opposed to just one.
“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 reads.
The letter comes from an Amazon subsidiary, Kuiper Systems, which is in the process of developing its own satellites under Project Kuiper.
The protest letter is hardly the first time the two billionaires have gone after each other. Aside from continually wrestling to be named “richest person on Earth,” Musk and Bezos have a history of going after each other’s space programs.
Bezos’ Blue Origin sued NASA after the space administration awarded a $2.89 billion contract to SpaceX to land the next Americans on the moon. In a related filing, Blue Origin said the lawsuit was in protest of NASA’s decision, which it called improper.
And Musk often replies to tweets that knock Bezos’ Blue Origin, and has called Bezos a copycat.
Neither Amazon nor Blue Origin were immediately available for comment.
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