Translated material
WSJ: The head of Amazon and Blue Origin Jeff Bezos is trying to get the state contracts of the mask for space launches after his quarrel with Trump
Jeff Bezos, the head of Amazon and the Blue Origin space company, is trying to get closer to Donald Trump for the sake of obtaining state contracts after the quarrel of Ilon Mask and the US president, writes The Wall Street Journal.
The head of Amazon spoke twice with Trump in June, and the general director of Blue Origin Dave Limp met with the head of the White House administration. During negotiations with the president and his team, Blue Origin representatives sought new state contracts. The President discussed with the founder of Amazon the desire to carry out a manned mission to the moon during his current period. Bezos even invited Trump to his wedding in Venice, scheduled for this weekend, but Trump will not be able to attend it due to a stressed work schedule.
Bezos activity began after a loud gap between Trump and Musk in early June. Musk, which owns the competing company Spacex, was previously one of the main advisers of the president. The Blue Origin leadership since last summer was worried about the proximity of the mask to Trump and the influence of this on receiving public orders. As noted in WSJ, the conflict between the president and the billionaire opened new opportunities for Bezos.
In May, Trump withdrew the candidacy for the post of head of NASA, which was supported by Musk. After the Master’s criticism of Trump’s bill in social networks and talk about the creation of a new political party, the president threatened to terminate the state financing of the entrepreneur. Trump said:
“The easiest way to save billions of dollars in the budget is to terminate state subsidies and Ilon's contracts.”
WSJ write that the main problem of Blue Origin in competition with SpaceX is the need to prove the ability to regularly launch its own powerful orbital missile. In January, the company first launched the New Glenn missile, reaching the orbit on the first attempt. However, the second launch planned in the spring was postponed until mid -August. At the same time, SpaceX plans to hold 170 launches this year, many of which will bring to orbit new satellites of the Starlink network.
In mid -June, Elon Musk admitted that he had said too much about Trump. He wrote on Twitter that he regrets some of his posts about the president who "went too far." Before that, he managed to blame Trump of appearing in Epstein's files, called not to vote for the budget bill, called the obsessed and supported the idea of his impeachment.