Elon Musk aggressively elbowed his way into the space launch business over the past two decades, combining engineering genius and an entrepreneurial drive with a demand that the U.S. government stop favoring the big, slow-moving contractors that had long dominated the industry.
Today, it is Mr. Musk who is dominant.
His company, SpaceX, is the primary provider of launch services to NASA and to the Pentagon.
His rockets carry far more commercial satellites into orbit than anyone else’s, including those for his own Starlink communications network.
The new generation of space entrepreneurs trying to emulate Mr. Musk is sufficiently concerned about what they see as his anticompetitive tactics that some of them are now willing to take him on publicly.
Persons:
Elon Musk, Musk
Organizations:
SpaceX, NASA, Pentagon