UK Edition
Jeff Bezos has brought his battle with Elon Musk to Britain, as Amazon hires a phalanx of lawyers and lobbyists for its upcoming satellite internet service.
The company has hired legal and regulatory executives from satellite companies OneWeb, Eutelsat and Inmarsat in the UK, France and Luxembourg as it gears up to launch its Kuiper broadband service.
It comes as Amazon is locked in a bitter war of words with Mr Musk’s SpaceX over proposals for Starlink, the rocket company’s own satellite internet network.
Amazon last week accused Mr Musk of believing that “rules are for other people” in a furious attack on the technology billionaire’s conduct. The two companies have been sparring over Starlink’s plans for its own system, with Amazon claiming the proposals break US regulations.
The dispute is part of a broader rivalry between Mr Musk and Mr Bezos, whose personal venture Blue Origin is attempting to challenge SpaceX in the commercial space launch market.
Mr Musk has claimed that Mr Bezos “retired in order to pursue a full-time job filing lawsuits against SpaceX”.
Kuiper is racing against both Starlink and OneWeb, the satellite company part owned by Britain, to launch constellations of small satellites that will provide broadband to rural areas and blackspots.
Amazon has not outlined specific plans to launch in Europe, and much of its attention has been focused on regulatory battles in the US, where it has asked American regulators to rein in Starlink.
Over this summer, however, it has hired Philippe Secher, OneWeb’s head of spectrum engineering; and Wladimir Bocquet, a policy executive from France’s Eutelsat, alongside other hires.
Amazon was recently dealt a potential setback in the UK when Ofcom said applicants for new satellite broadband licences would have to prove they would not interfere with existing services. Both OneWeb and Starlink already have licences in Britain. Amazon did not comment.