CEO of Tesla Motors and business tycoon Elon Musk certainly needs no introduction. A few weeks ago, NASA awarded Elon Musk’s SpaceX a lucrative contract to get astronauts to the moon by 2024. Now it seems fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos has a problem with this.
Bezos’ Blue Origin has filed a formal protest with the Government Accountability Office. Initially, NASA was going to choose two vendors to work with, but chose just one in the end due to a smaller budget and it went to SpaceX.
As stated by Blue Origin’s filing, the company claims NASA unfairly favored SpaceX throughout the bidding process..
“The Agency unreasonably favored SpaceX’s evaluation by minimizing significant risks in SpaceX’s design and schedule, while maximizing the same or similar risks in Blue Origin’s proposal. Such an evaluation is unreasonable and prejudiced Blue Origin.”
Blue Origins also released a statement on Monday where they accused NASA of carrying out a “flawed acquisition.”
“NASA has executed a flawed acquisition for the Human Landing System program and moved the goalposts at the last minute. Their decision eliminates opportunities for competition, significantly narrows the supply base, and not only delays, but also endangers America’s return to the Moon. Because of that, we’ve filed a protest with the GAO.”
Elon Musk noticed the news and took to Twitter to respond to it in a way only he knows how.
Can’t get it up (to orbit) lol
Needless to say, Musk’s cheeky reply won’t sit too well with Bezos after losing out on the NASA deal. We will have to see how the NASA deal will turn out for Musk. Before that, Musk is set to appear on SNL next month.