Inside the race between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos for control of outer space
TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. The space race used to be waged between countries like the U.S. and Russia. Now the race to control outer space is being waged between two tech billionaires and their companies, Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. Bezos is, of course, famous for creating Amazon, buying The Washington Post and founding the cloud computing company Amazon Web Services. Elon Musk is famous for being the CEO of Tesla, buying Twitter and turning it into X, and founding Starlink, which manufactures and launches satellites. Musk was also appointed by President Donald Trump to run DOGE – the Department of Government Efficiency. Bezos and Musk each want to colonize the moon and turn space into a supply chain for Earth.
My guest, journalist Josh Tyrangiel, writes that the two men hope to preserve human life from the specter of climate change and expand mankind’s understanding of the universe. Both would also like to dominate a market that, unlike every other market they’ve previously conquered, has no ceiling and few established rules. Accomplishing the visions of either man would rely on creating giant data centers in space. Tyrangiel is a staff writer at The Atlantic and wrote the November cover story titled “Choose Your Overlord: Musk Vs. Bezos.“
