Elon Musk and SpaceX have been targeted by “loafers” from the left, particularly Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, a targeting that has intensified since the billionaire Tesla CEO and SpaceX owner endorsed Donald Trump.
Minutes after the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, Elon Musk tweeted that he “fully supports President Trump.” With this endorsement, Musk has entered new territory and made himself a target. Let’s hope that this targeting doesn’t include violence. However, in his own words: Musk is already a target. But we already know that the attacks on Musk include legal and financial “loafers.”
The legal war Defined It is defined as “the use of legal or institutional mechanisms to harm or delegitimize others.” Trump knows that, right? Now Musk will be treated the same way. In fact, Musk has been leaning to the right for the past few years.—Even before the July 13 shooting in Pennsylvania, He donated to the Trump campaign, Donate more—He has already faced loafer attacks from several people, including fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos.
On June 21, Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin, Legal Attack against Musk’s own SpaceX. Among the complaints Federal Aviation AdministrationBlue Origin, a company under Pete Buttigieg’s Department of Transportation, is requiring an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for Musk’s rocket launch.
The stakes are higher than the heavens, for three reasons. beginningBlue Origin’s legal attacks threaten to slow, and even paralyze, a big company (SpaceX is valued at about $210 billion) and the larger industry of space launch and satellites. Number 2This is part of a proxy war between Joe Biden and Trump, with Bezos backing the Democrats and Musk backing the Republicans. The thirdThat could delay the entire US-led human spaceflight. Our becoming a spacefaring civilization is something profound and extremely important.
But all this may be lost, or at least slowed, and leadership An increasingly aggressive China— if Bezos and his lawyers get their way.
We all know about EIS. For half a centuryThese have been used by NIMBYs, Naderists and opponents to block development. The most notorious recent example of this green bushwhacking is in California. High-speed rail This $100 billion wasteful project is tangled up in EIS and other nonsense and has become a train that gets nowhere and is never completed.
Now Bezos and Blue Origin are trying to do the same thing with Space X. After listing every possible outcome the highly paid lawyers could think of, the complaint reads, “Accordingly, the EIS should thoroughly evaluate the substantial risks, alternatives, mitigation measures, and resources listed below.” It will take years and millions of dollars, but that’s the point. This is legal monkey wrenching.
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos speaks to the audience during a keynote address at the Amazon Re:MARS conference on robotics and artificial intelligence at the Aria Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, June 6, 2019. (Photo by Mark Ralston/AFP) (Photo by Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images)
mask Responded He quickly posted via X, “Not cool that they’re trying to sabotage SpaceX’s progress with a (third) legal battle.” And he Added “Sue Origin” is a sarcastic play on the name of Bezos’ company.
No one will get this joke, but Musk’s Grok AI Observed“The phrase ‘sue Origin’ can be interpreted as a sarcastic reference to Blue Origin’s history of resorting to lawsuits rather than competing fairly in the marketplace.” Musk said: attached Emojis, Bullseye.
Meanwhile, when you measure performance in space rather than tactics in the courtroom, there’s a big difference between the two companies.
Blue Origin was founded in 2000. We haven’t put the rocket into orbit yet.But despite their lack of technical ability, Bezos and his allies have stepped up their efforts in legal dodging and lobbying quagmires. 2021, Bezos’ origins Sued NASA To get a contract, Lose in court. This sent Bezos into swampy overdrive. Hire a lobbyist He once won a legally murky cloud computing contract from the Department of Defense. At the time, Musk said Shot“He should consider spending some of his money on actual lunar lander hardware, not on shady lobbyists.” Yes, Blue Origin Diversity.
And Bezos has a different kind of magic. motion contribution There are many Democrats, and Amazon employees tend to support the Democratic Party. Even tougher. So it gets us thinking: are the color names of Bezos’ space company a hint at something?
Also, in 2013, Bezos Washington Post, And in 2018 he The largest house in Washington DCNot far from Barack Obama’s spread. Bezos And his billions of dollars will be traded in Powertown.
Recognizing the tycoon’s influence, NASA awarded Blue Origin a lunar lander contract in 2023. cold Heading in Futurism“NASA Awards Moon Landing Contract as Consolation Prize to Competitive Jeff Bezos.”
Musk runs his company differently. SpaceX, founded two years after Blue Origin, has had great success in all aspects of space, including getting into orbit. 69 rockets The success rate is 100 percent, and the goal is to reach 150 by the end of the year.
In fact, SpaceX is so good that in June, NASA $843 million Contract to safely “de-orbit” aging tracks The International Space Station could pose a danger if it were to fall into a populated area.
But unlike Bezos, Musk has little interest in Washington, DC. He left California a few years ago and now lives in Texas, where the locals are welcoming to entrepreneurs and go-getters. In 2022, as we all remember, he bought Twitter, fired 80% of its woke, useless staff, and reasserted that the platform, renamed X, was a forum for free speech. moreover In a nice cleansing move, Musk released the Twitter files, bad old internal documents showing that deep state operatives worked with Twitter employees to suppress “disinformation” like Hunter Biden’s real laptop.
Conservatives should root for Musk, but Democrats are also taking notice and looking to retaliate.
Hence the contrast: Bezos is happily paddling on the Potomac River and suing for profits, while Musk is stargazing in the Texas bush, building a majestic company and leaving a Christopher Columbus-level mark on history.
So of course Blue Origin and many Democrats want to use the EIS to undermine SpaceX.
Ironically, Bezos himself, in his best days, recognized Star Trek’s extraordinary potential. As an undergraduate at Princeton University, he met space visionaries Gerald O’NeillHe has since “Trillion” Of people living in space. Considering that the population of Earth is “only” 8 billion people, this means an exponentially growing number of surviving people who will be living in space. Aside from the overall coolness of this investment Outlook. In our spacefaring future, all people work, create, and invent. We need to get used to new metrics for dollar amounts: quadrillion, 100 billion, 60 billion, etc.
But all of these future gains could be lost like tears in the rain if Musk and his fellow visionaries are shackled by environmental shackles like the EIS. To some extent, that’s already happening. Musk said Expressed annoyance The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a division of the Interior Department that is highly environmentally conscious and heavily influenced by Biden, has bristled at persistent efforts to delay the rocket launch. As if on cue, July 7, The New York Times He joined the legal war offensive and expressed great concern about the snowy plover (a type of bird).
thatIt is clear that more mainstream media and activist groups will join in, including European Liberal Alliance Attack X.
But what Musk cares about most is going into space, and going into space requires rocket launchers, so these legal attacks on Musk’s launches could be a mortal threat to the business. If the ultimate outcome of the environmental law battles is to drive SpaceX out of Texas, or out of the US, or out of business altogether, liberals would be fine with that.
Meanwhile, Musk Campaign against him humorHis company is detailed reaction Concerns regarding three American plovers.
In the meantime, Americans must decide: What is more important: going into space or further litigation?
Luckily, outward-looking people are stepping up to Musk’s defense. Space Nick Robert Zubrin “This is a disgrace to Blue Origin,” he tweeted. Joe Lonsdale, Trump supporter “Blue Origin is the ultimate loser bro. They’re so against the space economy that it’s slowing down,” the venture capital legend said. [deceleration, as opposed to acceleration]It’s reminiscent of retailers trying to thwart the “impact” of e-commerce. Embarrassing, Jeff Bezos.” As of the second week of July, Blue Origin I had nothing to say Respond. Why? The New York Times And is the mainstream media doing the heavy lifting?
If Donald Trump wins in November, he will undoubtedly curb the ability of legal obstructionists to use environmental impact assessments to block development.—Both in terms of space launches and in other respects. In fact, the Republican Party platform released on July 8th expressed high hopes for space.Expanding Freedom, Prosperity, and Security in Space” Pledge,
Under Republican leadership, America will create a robust manufacturing industry in near-Earth orbit, send American astronauts back to the Moon and then on to Mars, and strengthen partnerships with a rapidly expanding commercial space sector that will revolutionize our access to space, our ability to live in space, and our ability to develop space assets.
These words should give Musk and other space investors the confidence they need to bet big.
But Trump can’t be president forever, and the Republican Party can’t be in power forever, so states can play a role in protecting the rocket industry if they so choose. The states of Florida and Texas, where SpaceX launches the most, should take aggressive legal and legislative steps to ensure that the federal government can never intervene. (SpaceX also launches from California, but we can expect California environmental groups to shut that down soon.)
So the mask Permanent legal protections for space launches: an enterprise zone free of federal interference. And for space economy and space strategy all Many of us need it. To be sure, this defense will involve legal and political struggles to fight back against the lawyers, but we believe the effort is worth it.
Florida and Texas will be spaceports for the next million rocket launches. It’s about winning the future not just in space but on Earth as well.
