Elon Musk Vs. Jeff Bezos: NASA Halts Work On $2.9B Lunar Lander SpaceX Contract

U.S. space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has agreed to temporarily halt work on a $2.9 billion lunar lander contract awarded to Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk's SpaceX, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing a NASA spokeswoman. 

What Happened: The move comes after rival billionaire businessman. and Amazon.com Inc. AMZN founder Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin sued the agency over the lunar lander contract this month. Blue Origin’s bid was valued at $5.9 billion, nearly twice as much as Spacex’s bid.

See Also: Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin Loses Lead Engineer Working On Lunar Program To Elon Musk's SpaceX

Blue Origin has said its lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims last week, was "an attempt to remedy the flaws in the acquisition process found in NASA's Human Landing System." 

A U.S. judge has set an Oct. 14 hearing on the case and NASA has paused work with SpaceX on the human landing system through Nov. 1, the Reuters report noted.  

Why It Matters: The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) had last month rejected Blue Origin's protest and sided with the space agency over its decision to pick a single lunar lander provider.

Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Bezos, said there were "fundamental issues" with NASA's decision and that the GAO was not able to address them "due to their limited jurisdiction."  

NASA's contract aims at landing the astronauts on the Moon as early as 2024