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Jeff Bezos and the audacious bid to put nuclear reactors on the Moon

Amazon billionaire could get one-up on his rival Elon Musk in the space race’s latest twist.

Matthew Field, Senior Technology Reporter,

Amazon billionaire could get one-up on his rival Elon Musk in the space
race’s latest twist. Nasa’s proposals are likely to kick off a race
within the nuclear industry to be the first company to plant a reactor on
the Moon.

The US space agency previously ran a concept study into the idea.
The winning bidders included energy giant Westinghouse and defence firm
Lockheed Martin, working with nuclear business BWXT and X-energy, a nuclear
start-up backed by Jeff Bezos’s Amazon.

Amazon led a $500m (£365m)
investment in X-energy in 2024 and is one of its biggest shareholders. For
Bezos, who also controls the rocket business Blue Origin, success in
building a nuclear reactor on the Moon could help the billionaire one-up
rival Musk. Bezos and Musk have repeatedly clashed over their ambitions to
dominate space. The billionaires both bid for Nasa’s multibillion-dollar
lunar lander contract, which Musk won. The SpaceX boss has repeatedly
labelled Bezos and his Blue Origin business a “copycat”.

 Telegraph 31st Jan 2026, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/01/31/bezos-seeks-one-up-musk-nuclear-reactors-on-the-moon/

February 4, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | space travel, USA