Elon Musk calls Jeff Bezos a 'copy cat' after Amazon announces Project Kuiper

SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has called Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos a 'copy cat' on Twitter after the latter announced plans to provide broadband Internet access via satellites in low earth orbit.

This comes months after Musk's privately owned company SpaceX's starlink project got approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in November to launch over 11,000 satellites for providing global high-speed Internet.

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The Tesla CEO tweeted late on Tuesday replying to a post shared by 'MIT Technology Review' which read that 'Amazon plans to launch a massive constellation of more than 3,000 Internet satellites'.

.@JeffBezos copy

- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 9, 2019

SpaceX had embarked on a similar project in February last year when it had launched Starlink Internet satellites around its Falcon 9 rocket.

As per reports, Amazon's ambitious project will be called 'Project Kuiper' following up on last year's reports that Amazon was planning a "big, audacious space project" which would involve satellites and space-based systems.  The Seattle-based company is likely to spend billions of dollars on the project and could reap billions of dollars in revenue once the satellites are commercially functional, as per media reports.

According to a report in CNBC this week, Amazon had hired a former Starlink executive to head Project Kuiper. SpaceX's former VP of satellites Rajeev Badyal is reportedly joining the Amazon mission after he was fired by Musk in June 2018 as he grew frustrated with the project's slow pace.

(Edited by: Nehal Solanki)

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