Elon Musk mocks Blue Origin's moon lander after the company argued against SpaceX winning a $2.9 billion NASA contract

Jeff Bezos Elon Musk — Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Elon Musk mocked Blue Origin after it attacked NASA for awarding SpaceX a moon-lander contract.
Musk tweeted a photo of a Blue Origin moon lander with the words: "Somehow, this wasn't convincing."
Blue Origin says NASA gave SpaceX "preferential treatment" for the moon-lander contract.
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Elon Musk on Thursday mocked a photo of Blue Moon, the moon lander created by Jeff Bezos' aerospace company, Blue Origin.

His tweet came hours after Blue Origin once again criticized NASA for awarding SpaceX an exclusive $2.9 billion contract to land humans on the moon.

Blue Origin said it would continue to challenge NASA's decision and repeated its claims that SpaceX got "preferential treatment."

In response to Blue Origin's statement, tweeted by Washington Post reporter Christian Davenport, Musk tweeted a photo of Blue Moon with the caption: "Somehow, this wasn't convincing…"

-Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2021

The photo of the lunar lander concept, which appears to be taken at a Blue Origin event and shows the middle portion of the lander seemingly deflated, was originally posted on Reddit in 2019.

In April, NASA awarded the HLS contract to Elon Musk's aerospace company in order for its Starship rocket to land humans on the moon as early as 2024. SpaceX beat its competitors Blue Origin and defense contractor Dynetics.

NASA's decision came as a shock - the agency was expected to select two out of the three companies for the landing-system contract.

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Tuesday released a 76-page report that ruled in favor of NASA choosing SpaceX as the sole winner of the $2.9 billion Human Landing System contract (HLS).

The Blue Origin spokesperson told Davenport on Thursday that the company may take NASA's decision to the Court of Federal Claims, according to his tweet.

"We stand by our assessment that SpaceX received preferential treatment," a Blue Origin spokesperson told Insider. "We continue to urge NASA to restore competition and immediately award a second provider."

Since NASA's decision, Blue Origin has filed a protest, offered to cover up to $2 billion for the first two years of production of a moon lander, and posted an infographic on its website describing SpaceX's Starship as "immensely complex and high risk."

So far, there's no sign that NASA will reverse its decision.

Musk has continued to poke fun at Bezos for Blue Moon. After Blue Origin unveiled its lunar lander model in 2019, Musk tweeted: "Putting the word 'Blue' on a ball is questionable branding."

Musk later posted a screenshot of a New York Times article on which he changed the name from "Blue Moon" to "Blue Balls."

"Oh stop teasing, Jeff 😉," Musk wrote.

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