- Elon Musk’s biographer said the billionaire wants Jeff Bezos to focus his energy on Blue Origin.
- Walter Isaacson said on the “Diary of a CEO” podcast that Musk wants Bezos to grow the company.
- Musk previously told the FT that he was trying to goad Bezos so the firm would make more progress.
Elon Musk’s biographer said the billionaire wants Jeff Bezos to “get out of his hot tub and yacht,” and focus his efforts on his aerospace company, Blue Origin.
During a recent appearance on the “Diary of a CEO” podcast, Walter Isaacson said the competitors “don’t hang out together,” but that “Musk respects Bezos.”
Isaacson, whose biography of Elon Musk came out in September, told the podcast host, Steven Bartlett, how the SpaceX founder views Bezos.
He said, “Musk says I want Bezos to succeed. I want him to be driving us into space because the more that do it, the better. I wish he would get out of his hot tub and yacht more often so Blue Origin can be more successful.”
Bezos left Amazon in July 2021 and handed the reins to Andy Jassy.
He set sail on his $500 million megayacht Koru this summer, which reportedly has a hot tub on deck.
In 2021, the SpaceX chief told the Financial Times, “In some ways, I’m trying to goad him into spending more time at Blue Origin so they make more progress. As a friend of mine says, he should spend more time at Blue Origin and less time in the hot tub.”
Musk and Bezos have feuded for years over their space ambitions. Isaacson said on the podcast that Musk “hasn’t gone ballistic” on the Amazon founder since their quarrel over a patent for a rocket-booster recovery method ended.
Blue Origin filed a patent for the concept in 2010. It was initially granted in 2014. SpaceX then petitioned the US Patent Trial and Appeal Board a few months later, saying that “the ‘rocket science’ claimed in the patent was “old hat’.”
In 2015, the board canceled the remaining 13 of the 15 claims in that patent following a request from Blue Origin itself to do so. The judges ruled mostly in SpaceX’s favor.
The idea that Bezos was trying to patent the idea made Musk furious, Isaacson said.
Representatives for Elon Musk didn’t immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment, made outside of normal working hours.
