A rare photo has surfaced of a fateful meeting between Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk 17 years ago.
The photo, tweeted earlier this month by Trung Phan, a writer for the business newsletter The Hustle, shows Musk and Bezos smiling and sitting in a restaurant. Phan said it was taken in 2004, just as Musk's and Bezos' space ambitions were heating up.
1/ In 2004, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos met for a meal to discuss space.
— Trung Phan 🇨🇦 (@TrungTPhan) March 1, 2021
It was one of their few in-person interactions.
The conversation they had perfectly captures the different approaches they've taken to space exploration.
Here's the story 🧵 pic.twitter.com/g8hAsEj3d4
Musk responded to the photo on Saturday by tweeting, "Wow, hard to believe that was 17 years ago!"
The 2004 meeting is widely believed to be the beginning of a long-standing rivalry between the moguls and their space companies, SpaceX and Blue Origin.
While Bezos hasn't publicly discussed the meal, Musk described their meeting to Christian Davenport for his book "The Space Barons." Musk said that Bezos was "barking up the wrong tree" about rockets and that SpaceX had already tried several of the ideas Bezos was proposing, calling them "dumb."
"I actually did my best to give good advice, which he largely ignored," Musk said.
Bezos has made veiled critiques of Musk's goal of sending humans to Mars, while Musk has taken jabs at some of Amazon's business ventures, calling Bezos a "copycat" on more than one occasion. SpaceX and Blue Origin have also competed over talent, patents, NASA contracts, and access to launchpads.
For the past several months, Bezos and Musk have also been jockeying for the title of the richest person in the world. Bezos is in the No. 1 spot with a fortune of $181 billion, while Musk, with a net worth of about $170 billion, is No. 2.
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