Earth's richest men fight over space

In some of the most dystopian feeling news I’ve ever written, the two richest humans on Earth are fighting over bits of space.

I guess we just weren’t enough for them.

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are duking it out over satellite space. Not in a cool way like getting into a Thunderdome and actually settling things, mind. Not even like an Ace Attorney Reddit argument. Just the usual rich person way.

The fight started when Musk sought permission from the FCC to lower some of the Starlink satellites, responsible for providing higher speed internet to typically difficult to service areas.

Bezos’ Amazon was all, and I’m paraphrasing here ‘Hell nah dawg, that’s where we’re gonna launch some of our own internet shit later and we don’t want none of that interference’.

That would be Project Kuiper, which was announced back in 2019. However, unlike Musk’s Starlink project which is already in use, Amazon hasn’t launched a single satellite.

This was something Michael Sheets, space reporter at CNBC was quick to point out, and Elon Musk was equally quick to agree with on Twitter.

But Amazon has rebutted, explaining that years of design and work have gone into the product already, and they take into consideration the previous placement of Starlink satellites.

“The facts are simple,” a spokesperson told Futurism. “We designed the Kuiper System to avoid interference with Starlink, and now SpaceX wants to change the design of its system. Those changes not only create a more dangerous environment for collisions in space, but they also increase radio interference for customers. Despite what SpaceX posts on Twitter, it is SpaceX’s proposed changes that would hamstring competition among satellite systems. It is clearly in SpaceX’s interest to smother competition in the cradle if they can, but it is certainly not in the public’s interest.”

So who should win out of these two space claiming billionaires?

I propose we offer to cut space in half to share between them. Clearly the one who loves space more will refuse and thus prove his superior love for… uh… profits or something.

Maybe next they can fight over who gets to solve world hunger with a click of their fingers? Or provide global medicine or education... That could be cool. Right?