---
title: "Space Race: The sport of choice for billionaires Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk"
description: "Feb 3 (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc billionaire founder Jeff Bezos said on Tuesday he is stepping down as chief executive of the e-commerce giant as he looks to focus on personal projects, including his rocket startup Blue Origin."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "Newsdeck"
author: "Reuters"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/reuters/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-02-03-space-race-the-sport-of-choice-for-billionaires-jeff-bezos-elon-musk/"
published: "2021-02-03T21:44:46"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 383
---

# Space Race: The sport of choice for billionaires Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk

> Feb 3 (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc billionaire founder Jeff Bezos said on Tuesday he is stepping down as chief executive of the e-commerce giant as he looks to focus on personal projects, including his rocket startup Blue Origin.

By Reuters · Published 3 February 2021, 23:44 SAST

## Content

Building and sending rockets to outer space is a capital
intensive business, but two of the richest men in the world,
Bezos and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk have invested billions of dollars
over the years to make inroads in this market.
 Blue Origin and SpaceX mainly aim to send satellites for
clients into orbit at an affordable price and reuse parts of
rockets to keep costs in check.
 Here's how the two space startups measure up against one
another:

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin Elon Musk's SpaceX
 Founded 2000, headquartered in 2002, headquartered in
 Kent, Washington Hawthorne, California
 Funding Most funds come from Backers include Elon
 Bezos, who said in 2017 Musk, Alphabet Inc,
 he would sell $1 bln Fidelity Investments,
 worth of his Amazon.com and Bailie Gifford. The
 Inc stock every year to next round of funding
 fund the company. Total is expected to give it
 funding and valuation a valuation of at least
 have not been publicly $60 bln, according to a
 disclosed. Business Insider
 report.
 Goals Blue Origin, whose SpaceX says its
 Latin motto means "step ultimate goal is to
 by step, ferociously," enable people to live
 is working towards on Mars.
 making civilian space
 flight an important Its Starlink broadband
 niche in the global satellite internet
 space economy, service aims to offer
 alongside satellite fast internet speeds to
 services and government rural customers with
 exploration projects. limited options.
 Milestones Blue Origin, yet to SpaceX has had over 100
 launch anything into successful space
 orbit, has launched and missions so far. Its
 landed its suborbital Crew Dragon capsule
 rocket, New Shepard, delivered two
 more than a dozen astronauts to the
 times. It aims to International Space
 complete development of Station in 2020.
 its much bigger
 workhorse orbital
 rocket, New Glenn, by
 this year.
 Collaborat Blue Moon lunar-lander Starship moon-lander
 ion with project was awarded project was awarded
 NASA $579 mln in April 2020 $135 mln in April 2020
 by NASA. by NASA
 Crewed- Blue Origin is SpaceX is targeting the
 Projects currently testing its fourth quarter of this
 New Shepard booster and year to launch the
 capsule spaceship that first all-commercial
 aims to take space astronaut mission to
 tourists aboard by Earth's orbit, called
 April this year. Inspiration4.

(Reporting by Eva Mathews and Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru;
Editing by Ramakrishnan M.)