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Jeff Bezos says he isn’t worried about his fellow billionaire and space rival Elon Musk’s growing political power.
The Amazon (AMZN+2.46%) founder who is now focused on his space venture, Blue Origin, called Musk’s SpaceX “very good competitors,” during an interview at the annual New York Times (NYT+1.10%) DealBook Summit on Wednesday.
“I take it face value, what has been said, which is that he’s not going to use his political power to advantage his own companies or to disadvantage his competitors,” Bezos said, adding that he “could be wrong about that, but I think it could be true.”
Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal (NWSA+0.49%) reported that Bezos, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, and other tech and business leaders who have crossed Musk in the past are worried about his influential relationship with Donald Trump. The President-elect himself has called Amazon a monopoly, and nicknamed Bezos as “Jeff Bozo.”
After Blue Origin filed a protest over a $2.9 billion contract between SpaceX and NASA in 2021, Musk responded to a New York Times report on it, writing on X: “Can’t get it up (to orbit) lol.” Musk also nicknamed Bezos’s company “Sue Origin” after it petitioned the FAA to limit some SpaceX launches.
“I’ve had a lot of success in life not being cynical,” Bezos said at the DealBook Summit. “And I think that cynicism — why be cynical about that. Let’s go into it hoping that the statements that have been made are correct, that this is going to be done above board, in the public interest. And if that turns out to be naïve, well, then we’ll see. But I actually think it’s going to be great.”
Bezos said he’s “optimistic this time around” about Trump’s second term, and that “he has a good chance of succeeding” with his agenda to reduce regulations around business.
The billionaire, who also owns the Washington Post, said the paper’s controversial decision to not endorse a presidential candidate in 2024 was made because “it wasn’t going to influence the election either way.”
In response to a question over Trump’s “idea” that “the press is the enemy,” Bezos said he’s “going to try to talk him out of that idea.”