Amazon’s founder and owner of space privateer firm Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos, decided that Elon Musk’s big moment – vertically landing the 48m SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket after delivering satellites into orbit – was too good a moment to pass up the opportunity for some backhanded compliments on Twitter.
After an ecstatic Musk took to Twitter to boast about going “there and back again”, Bezos threw shade.
Congrats @SpaceX on landing Falcon's suborbital booster stage. Welcome to the club!
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) December 22, 2015
The “club” refers to Blue Origin’s successful landing of its New Shepard rocket a month earlier, which saw Bezos call out Musk saying that a “controlled landing not easy, but done right, can look easy” starting the public Twitter spat between the two.
Musk, having attempted to land the Falcon 9 several times at the beginning of the year, which ended in “rapid unscheduled disassembly” and other euphemisms for explosions, responded in kind with “clarifications” over the scale of Bezos’s achievement.
Bezos’s tweet incited some similarly snide abuse from his fellow tweeters.
@JeffBezos Only you could make a congratulatory tweet sound smug and assholish.Obviously youve spent too much time on the West coast @SpaceX
— str_thry (@StrThry) December 22, 2015
@JeffBezos @SpaceX Cheap shot. Apples and oranges here, saying otherwise cheapens your own achievement.
— Ted Everett (@ZedsTed) December 22, 2015
@JeffBezos @SpaceX what club ? This was a million times more difficult than what u did
— Avionica (@avionicamusica) December 22, 2015
@JeffBezos You're in the space tourism business, dude. Settle down.
— Daniel Lewis (@danrlewis) December 22, 2015
@JeffBezos @SpaceX haha that's funny you actually think you're on the same level as @elonmusk
— Mike Sudyk (@sudyk) December 22, 2015
@JeffBezos @SpaceX To be fair they landed a real rocket
— Alaa Murad (@alaamurad) December 22, 2015
@JeffBezos @SpaceX This is @elonmusk right now pic.twitter.com/MAQjxZ87S9
— Xero Some (@xerosome) December 22, 2015
The difference between the two rockets was aptly described in one image.
@JeffBezos @SpaceX enough said... pic.twitter.com/DbRGxcVyCv
— Bryan Meister (@MeisterBryan) December 22, 2015
Both SpaceX and Blue Origin’s landings are astounding achievements. But that never occurs to technology billionaires with a point to prove.
