“Interesting question,” mused Bezos, who in 2013 purchased The Washington Post intending to protect free speech and backing journalism. “Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage over the town square?”
He remarked atop a retweet from a New York Times journalist, stressing that Musk’s Tesla was highly exposed to China. China is Tesla’s second-largest market, and its manufacturers supply battery parts for Musk’s company.
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Several hours later, he seemed to moderate his barbed question and praise Musk. “My own answer to this question is probably not. The more likely outcome in this regard is complexity in China for Tesla, rather than censorship at Twitter,” he tweeted. “But we’ll see. Musk is extremely good at navigating this kind of complexity.”
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Bezos and Musk are noted for their rivalry in space, with both men dedicating large chunks of their fortunes to exploration. Bezos dismisses Musk’s goal to colonize Mars using his SpaceX rockets as unrealistic, while Musk has been scathing regarding the orbiting space station Blue Origin founder Bezos proposes. Blue Origin was established in 2000 while SpaceX was launched in 2003, and the pair first met in person in 2004 at a dinner.
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According to Christian Davenport’s book, The Space Barons, Musk announced after the meeting: “I actually did my best to give good advice, which he largely ignored.” The rivalry heated up in 2013 when Bezos attempted to oppose SpaceX’s exclusive use of a NASA launchpad, stating it should instead be available for all commercial spacecraft.
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Musk announced in response. “[Blue Origin] has not yet succeeded in creating a reliable suborbital spacecraft, despite spending over 10 years in development.”
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“If they do somehow show up in the next five years with a vehicle qualified to NASA’s human rating standards that can dock with the Space Station, which is what Pad 39A is meant to do, we will gladly accommodate their needs.” “Frankly, I think we are more likely to discover unicorns dancing in the flame duct.”