Elon Musk takes swipe at Jeff Bezos: Check what he said

SpaceX chief Elon Musk took a dig at Billionaire Jeff Bezos for trying to lobby the government instead of focusing on building rockets. “If lobbying and lawyers could get you to orbit, Bezos would be on Pluto right now,” Musk said in a tweet in response to a user on the microblogging platform.

The two billionaires, who have been trying to launch long-range orbital rockets, were competing for a coveted contract from the government to build a spaceship to deliver astronauts to the moon as early as 2024.

Earlier this year in April, NASA rejecting Bezos’ Blue Origin's bid, had awarded Elon Musk's SpaceX, a $2.9 billion contract to build a spacecraft to bring astronauts to the lunar surface as early as 2024. The reason given was the space agency own funding shortfalls and SpaceX's proven record of orbital missions.

Following this, Blue Origin took the matter to the U.S. Government Accountability Office accusing NASA of giving SpaceX an unfair advantage by allowing it to revise its pricing. "NASA veered from its original dual-source acquisition strategy due to perceived near-term budgetary issues, and this offer removes that obstacle," Bezos wrote in the letter, as reported by Reuters.

Musk's SpaceX bid alone while Bezos' Blue Origin partnered with Lockheed Martin Corp, Northrop Grumman Corp and Drape.