Elon Musk’s SpaceX calls out Amazon in latest spit on Starlink: “Despite its theatrics, Amazon doesn’t identify a single fact, figure, or data flicker that SpaceX omitted from its app.”

• SpaceX responded Thursday to Amazon’s latest move on its Starlink expansion plans.
• The day before, Amazon targeted Elon Musk, saying the CEO believed “the rules are for others.”
• The letter is one of five heated exchanges between the two companies over the satellite system.
• See more stories on the Insider business page.

In the latest in a series of feuds between the companies of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, SpaceX called out Amazon for its “theatricality” and “playfulness” in its complaints against Starlink Gen2.

“As usual, Amazon is trying to prevent a fair substantive review by resorting to procedural play,” SpaceX said in its letter to the Federal Communications Commission. “Despite its theatricality, Amazon does not identify a single fact, figure or data flicker that SpaceX omitted from its application.”

SpaceX’s response follows a fiery letter from Amazon on Wednesday. The letter was Amazon’s latest installment in a series of five exchanges between the two companies at the FCC discussing SpaceX’s plans to expand its Starlink satellite network.

In its letter, Amazon targeted Musk, saying the CEO of SpaceX and his companies believe “the rules are for others.” The letter accused SpaceX of distracting from the real issue – the company’s failure to narrow its Starlink Gen2 proposal down to one option – and instead focusing on personal attacks on Amazon and Bezos. Amazon highlighted Musk’s propensity to tweet about the company’s issues.

Last week, Musk said on Twitter that suing SpaceX was Bezos’ “full-time job”. At the time, SpaceX said lawsuits by Bezos’ companies, including Amazon and Blue Origin, had “become a bigger bottleneck than technology,” noting that the companies had filed complaints against SpaceX about every 16 days this year.

In its letter dated Thursday, SpaceX urged the FCC to focus on the merits of its proposal and criticized Amazon for what it described as a lack of progress on its own satellite system.

“Another week, another Amazon objection against its competitor, but still no sign of progress on Amazon’s own satellite system,” SpaceX said.

Starlink is part of Musk’s vision to build an interconnected Internet network with thousands of satellites that would provide high-speed Internet to customers all over the planet. Amazon’s satellite Internet subsidiary – Kuiper Systems – has a similar vision, but is expected to take about a decade to fully deploy its planned 3,236 satellites. While the Starlink service is still in beta, the company currently has more than 100,000 users in 14 countries. SpaceX has launched 1,740 Starlink satellites to date, and its second-generation project plans to have nearly 30,000 satellites in total.

Amazon’s latest lawsuit against SpaceX is one of many filed by Bezos affiliates. Blue Origin, a space company started by the billionaire, has filed several protests against NASA’s decision to select SpaceX over Blue Origin for its moonlighting project. More recently, Blue Origin took the matter to federal court, calling NASA’s decision “unfair” and essentially stopping SpaceX’s work on the project.

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