Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk may both have their individual claims on the space race, but a new lawsuit filed by an Amazon shareholder alleges that a lack of proper vetting over launch contracts may have given Blue Origin an unfair advantage.
Filed by the Cleveland Bakers and Teamsters pension fund in the Delaware Court of Chancery this week, the lawsuit claims that the Amazon (AMZN) -) Board "spent less than 40 minutes" approving launch contracts for the Project Kuiper satellite project. Project Kuiper, which is designed to send broadband internet into remote areas of the world, is comparable to Elon Musk's Starlink.
Related: Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is purposefully lagging behind Elon Musk's SpaceX
According to the lawsuit, Amazon's board did not consider Elon Musk's SpaceX whatsoever, despite it being the leading launch company of the two, failing to protect the negotiation process from "Bezos' glaring conflict of interest."
It also states that the launch contracts were a massive expenditure for Amazon at the time, falling second only to its $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods in 2017. The amount spent was not publicly disclosed, but Techcrunch estimates it would be $1.7 billion.
"The claims in this lawsuit are completely without merit, and we look forward to showing that through the legal process," an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement to Reuters.
The pension fund seeks unspecified damages and legal fees.
While conflict between Musk and Bezos has never risen to the level of Musk's childish rivalry with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, it's clear the two billionaires have had some beef in the past. If the lawsuit's claims have merit, it means Bezos may have allegedly snubbed SpaceX in favor of Blue Origin.
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