Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have never been fond of each other, but the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX recently publicly praised the Amazon founder for investing nearly $30 billion of his personal fortune to build his space company.
"Awesome!" Musk responded on X to a video clip in which Bezos revealed during an interview on Wednesday that he has "personally put $28 billion" into the rocket launch company since founding Blue Origin in 2000.
Musk added: "Great to see Jeff Bezos caring so much about space." Bezos stepped down as Amazon CEO in 2021 but still serves as executive chairman of the e-commerce giant.
During the interview, he said Blue Origin had just completed its first external funding round, raising more than $10 billion. Bezos also said now is the right time to stop personally funding the company.
"I have a clearer view of Blue Origin's financial prospects now; I didn't really want to bring in outside investors until I was confident this would be a good investment for them," he said.
Bezos added that he expects Blue Origin to "become a public company at some point," but its IPO will be "a few years away."
Musk and Bezos have historically clashed over launch pads, government contracts, patents, talent, imitation, and other issues, with Musk once labeling Bezos' company "Sue Origin." But the two billionaires have occasionally expressed admiration for each other.
Musk has said he teases Bezos because he wants to motivate him to work harder at Blue Origin, so his praise for Bezos putting $28 billion into the company is likely sincere, as it is a clear sign of dedication.
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