Elon Musk jokes about Jeff Bezos’ rocket length and says he’s sending him a silver medal for rich list placing

SpaceX co-founder Elon Musk has added more fire to his long-running feud with Jeff Bezos by mocking the shape of the rocket that the Amazon founder recently flew to space in.

For those that aren’t aware, Bezos followed in Richard Branson’s footsteps in July and made a brief, albeit suborbital, trip to space onboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.

However, all anyone could talk about in the aftermath was the phallic shape of the rocket which became an instant meme.

As a man who likes a good meme, New Shepard’s amusing shape clearly brought a smile to the face of Musk and he couldn’t resist poking fun at it during a recent interview.

Speaking at the Code Conference, Musk was asked by the interviewer Kara Swisher about the shape of the rocket, to which the South African entrepreneur replied: “I think it could be a different shape potentially.”

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Musk appeared to double down on his mockery of the rocket when he was pressed by Swisher on the technical justifications for making New Shepard that odd shape. The 50-year-old said: “If you’re only going suborbital, your rocket can be shorter,” which elicited further chuckles from the audience.

It’s no secret that Musk and Bezos’ desire to both expand space exploration has put them at odds with one another. Although Musk’s SpaceX enterprise is firmly established in the space race, having already launched several manned missions into the solar system, including a recent all-civilian flight, Blue Origin is still a fledgling company trying to make a name for itself.

Their rivalry now stretches back years, with Bezos raising several formal complaints due to the contracts that SpaceX have received from the likes of NASA and other initiatives launched by his competitor. Musk was asked by Swisher about Blue Origins legal complaints which gave him another chance to take a swipe at Bezos.

“I think he should put more energy in getting to orbit than,” lawsuits said Musk with the Tesla founder adding: “You can’t sue your way to the moon no matter how good your lawyers are.”

Shortly after Bezos’ flight on New Shepard, Musk had publicly laughed at a Star Wars meme on Twitter that mocked the fact the flight was only suborbital.

Elsewhere, it was confirmed on Monday by Forbes that Musk is the third person in the world to ever be worth $200 billion and surpassed Bezos on the publication’s billionaire’s list in the process. Musk took this opportunity to mock Bezos again when he wrote in an email to Forbes: “I’m sending a giant statue of the digit ‘2’ to Jeffrey B., along with a silver medal.”

Zing!

It looks like this feud between these two billionaires isn’t going to be over anytime soon.