Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos believes that he and his ‘rival’ and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk are very like-minded in terms of their goals for humanity. In his recent appearance at the Lex Fridman podcast, Bezos said that he only knows Musk's "public persona" but admitted the common aspirations of both individuals. 

Bezos was asked about his thoughts on Musk by Fridman to which he replied, “I don't really know Elon very well. I know his public persona but I also know you can't know anyone by their public persona. I mean, you think you do but I guarantee you don't.”

Thank you to @elonmusk and @jeffbezos for helping humanity reach out toward the stars and eventually become a multiplanetary species. I hope to see a friendship (and some friendly competition) develop between them over time, and to chat with both together on a future podcast! pic.twitter.com/dgPnrJTkyn

— Lex Fridman (@lexfridman)

In his answer, Bezos, however, admitted that his competitor must be a great leader to lead SpaceX and Tesla at the same time, and operating them at the highest level. 

“But in the terms of his judging by the results, he must be a very capable leader. There is no way you could have, you know, Tesla and SpaceX without being a capable leader. It's impossible,” Bezos said. 

Hearing words of appreciation from the billionaire, Fridman, a close friend to Musk, hoped to see the two hangout someday considering the plans both individuals have for humanity. 

“I agree with you and I think in a lot of these endeavours, we're very like-minded. I'm not saying we're identical but I think we're very like-minded,” Bezos said. 

Both Musk and Bezos have been at loggerheads for quite a while especially in the space sector. The feud escalated in 2021 when Bezos' Blue Origin filed a complaint before the United States Court of Federal Claims against NASA for awarding SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract for Artemis program.

Blue Origin, however, lost the case which invited some trolling from Musk. Fast forward to May 2023, NASA also awarded Bezos' firm with a $3.4 billion contract to develop a lunar lander for Moon missions. 

Notably, Bezos' Blue Origin is two years older than Musk's SpaceX which was launched in 2002. Experts, however, say that SpaceX is years ahead of its competitor since it does everything from transporting cargo and crew to the International Space Station (ISS) whereas Blue Origin is limited to carrying half-a-dozen people to the Karman Line - the internationally recognised boundary of space 100 km above the surface.