Bloomberg Law by Mike Leonard 3/28/2025
• Bezos used Blue Origin instead of SpaceX, pension fund said
• Delaware Chancery Court judge threw out lawsuit in February
A lawsuit blaming the feud between the world’s two richest men for costly delays plaguing Amazon.com Inc.'s space satellite project is headed to Delaware’s top court.
The pension fund leading the shareholder case launched its appeal Wednesday, asking the state supreme court to revive claims that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos hamstrung its Project Kuiper by relying on his own rocket startup, Blue Origin LLC, rather than Elon Musk’s more established SpaceX. A judge tossed the suit from Delaware’s Chancery Court last month, saying Amazon’s board was free from conflicts of interest when it made that choice.
“Directors can always do more,” Vice Chancellor Nathan A. Cook wrote Feb. 24, quoting a previous court filing by Bezos and the board. “A bad-faith claim is reserved for disciplining directors who deliberately do essentially nothing.”
Musk has a net worth of $337 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, while Bezos is worth $222 billion. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is third on the list with $213 billion.
Project Kuiper—among the costliest ventures in the tech giant’s three-decade history—is a planned competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink network, a multibillion-dollar enterprise involving a mega-constellation of satellites facilitating global internet access. Under its Federal Communications Commission license, Amazon has until 2026 to send up the first of roughly 1,600 satellites and three more years to launch the next batch, according to the 2023 court complaint.
More:
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/esg/bezos-musk-space-rivalry-dispute-goes-to-delaware-supreme-court
