Two Billionaires Are Racing to Control Outer Space

The space race used to be a contest between countries. The United States and Russia once competed to see who could launch the most rockets and reach the farthest corners of space. Now, two of the world's richest men — Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos — are leading a new kind of space race, one driven not by governments but by private companies and massive personal fortunes. Their competition could change life on Earth and beyond.

Elon Musk is the CEO of Tesla and the founder of SpaceX, the company that builds and launches rockets and satellites. He also owns the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, and was appointed by President Donald Trump to lead DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency. Jeff Bezos is best known for founding Amazon and buying The Washington Post. His space company is called Blue Origin. Both men want to colonize the moon, build businesses in space, and use space resources to help protect life on Earth.

Journalist Josh Tyrangiel wrote about this rivalry for The Atlantic magazine. His November cover story is titled 'Choose Your Overlord: Musk Vs. Bezos.' He says both men hope to protect human life from the dangers of climate change and to expand our understanding of the universe. But they also want to dominate a market that, unlike any other, has no ceiling and almost no rules. Tyrangiel appeared on the NPR radio show Fresh Air to explain what is at stake.

SpaceX already controls a huge share of what goes into space. In 2025, SpaceX launched about 80% of all the objects that went into orbit. The next closest competitor was not Blue Origin — it was the government of China. This means one private company, owned by one person, has more power in space than almost any country on Earth. Tyrangiel called this the 'mercurial billionaire problem,' a concern the U.S. Air Force identified as far back as the early 2000s.

The risks of this concentration of power became clear during a dispute between Musk and President Trump. Musk threatened to stop producing the rocket used to carry Americans to the International Space Station. If that happened, the United States would have had to pay Russia $80 million per seat to get its astronauts there. This showed how much the country now depends on private companies — and how little control the government has if those companies decide not to cooperate.

NASA still plays an important role in setting space policy. Its new administrator, Jared Isaacman, has said that Americans will return to the moon. He has set up a competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin to build the rocket and lander needed for that mission. However, NASA does not oversee satellite activity. Musk's Starlink network already has about 11,000 satellites in space, which is roughly two-thirds of all objects currently in orbit.

Ukraine's experience shows just how much power Musk holds. During its war with Russia, Ukraine relied on Musk's Starlink satellites for military communications. At one point, Musk temporarily cut off Ukraine's access to Starlink, saying the country had broken Starlink's rules about how the service could be used. Later, Ukraine's access to a more powerful military network called Starshield was also restricted. Events like these show that when a private company controls key technology, governments may lose the ability to make their own decisions.

Both Musk and Bezos have big plans for the moon. Bezos has believed since high school that polluting industries should be moved off Earth and that our planet should be kept clean, like a national park. He credits this idea to a scientist named Gerard O'Neill, who wrote about building colonies in space. Musk originally dreamed of going to Mars, but he has gradually shifted his focus closer to the moon. Now both men are planning a kind of lunar city — a permanent human settlement on the moon.

One major part of their plans involves building data centers in space. Data centers are large facilities filled with computers that store and process information. On Earth, they use enormous amounts of electricity and water for cooling. In space, the sun provides constant energy, and the extreme cold of space can be used for cooling instead. Some experts think that within five to seven years, space-based data centers could actually be cheaper than building them on the ground.

SpaceX has even asked the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, for permission to launch up to one million satellites. The FCC regulates satellites because they are communications technology. Some astronomers think the number one million is far too high and will never actually happen. But even a fraction of that number would dramatically change what space looks like. No one fully knows what that many objects orbiting Earth would do to astronomy, space travel, or the environment of space itself.

There are also serious questions about pollution. Every rocket launch burns fuel, and building on the moon would create clouds of lunar dust that could damage machinery. Space junk — old satellites and broken rocket parts — already crashes into other objects. With thousands more launches planned, these problems could get much worse. Experts say the environmental impact of all this activity, both on Earth and in space, is still largely unknown.

Some people think the best solution right now is to make sure that both Musk and Bezos succeed, rather than letting just one of them dominate. Former National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told Tyrangiel that it is much better for the country to have two competing space companies than just one. Having two powerful players might prevent any single person from having total control over the future of space. It may not be a perfect answer, but it reflects just how complicated and unprecedented this moment in history really is.