Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos met in 2004 for dinner.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, and Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, have been fighting in public for years, but not many know that the two even met in 2004 for a friendly dinner. A photo of the meeting is currently going viral on social media – and it even caught Elon’s Musk’s attention, who responded to it on Twitter.
While Mr. Musk and Mr. Bezos is no competitor in any earthly enterprise – the former has earned its fortune in electric cars, the latter in e-commerce, the two have similar spatial ambitions. Jeff Bezos started Blue Origin in 2000, two years before Elon Musk launched Space Exploration Technologies Corporation or SpaceX.
Over the past few years, Blue Origin and SpaceX have clashed over renting launch pads, landing strip patents and more, GeekWire reports. Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk sometimes closed horns about their rockets and their various plans for space exploration.
But in 2004, both companies were still in their infancy. It was then Mr. Musk and Bezos had one of their few interactions when they met for dinner. Even then, things were tested between the two.
“I actually did my best to give good advice, which he largely ignored,” Elon Musk told the Yahoo News after the meeting.
A photo of the meeting was shared on Twitter earlier this month and caught Elon Musk’s attention on Sunday. “Wow, hard to believe it was 17 years ago!” he writes as he responds to the photo, which shows the two billionaires at a dinner table.
Wow, hard to believe it was 17 years ago!
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 21 March 2021
The photo garnered thousands of likes and comments on the microblogging platform.
“Guy at the back has no idea he’s two absolute legends sitting next to him,” one Twitter user wrote.
“Although SpaceX vs Blue Origin provide good headlines and interesting comparisons / contrasts, they have different objectives and are space big enough for both. I do not think they are competitors in the traditional sense,” said another.
Elon Musk briefly surpassed Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest person in January before the Amazon boss regained the title.
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