How the tables have turned.
Space Suit
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has long fought with fellow tech titan Jeff Bezos and his commercial space company Blue Origin, with Musk lobbing insults like “Sue Origin” and quipping that his rival “can’t get it up.”
One key broadside by Musk: that Bezos has used legal maneuvering to prop up his technically challenged venture, like when Blue Origin sued NASA over its decision to award SpaceX with a contract to land astronauts on the Moon.
But now the shoe is on the other foot, with Musk vowing to sue the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after they slapped him with violating certain regulations — which is pretty rich coming from Musk after all the trash he’s talked about Bezos’ “lawfare.”
“I am highly confident that discovery will show improper, politically-motivated behavior by the FAA,” Musk fumed about his own suit this week.
Race to the Stars
Musk’s anger towards the FAA stems from the long shadow it’s cast over the development of his experimental Starship rocket, like when the agency slapped SpaceX with up to $633,000 in civil fines for using an unapproved control room and a “rocket propellant farm” that hadn’t been given the green light.
In his other dealings with the FAA, Musk has sometimes come up on top, including when he pitted the FAA against the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the latter of which was concerned about environmental damage around SpaceX’s launch site in Texas from rockets setting fire to the landscape during test flights.
Musk does have a history of suing people as a bullying tactic to get his way, such as his lawsuit against the National Labor Relations Board stemming over SpaceX firing employees who were critical of Musk.
And that’s why it’s funny, in an ironic way, that Musk would protest Bezos’ Blue Origin for suing the government space industry — before doing exactly the same thing himself.
More on Elon Musk and SpaceX: Elon Musk Says Starship, Which Has Never Launched Into Orbit and Then Landed on Earth Without Crashing, Will Be Landing on Mars by 2026