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Jeff Bezos’ unfinished mega yacht was towed away from a Dutch shipbuilding yard before dawn Tuesday just weeks after Rotterdam residents threatened to pelt the luxury vessel with eggs if the city went through with plans to dismantle a landmark bridge to make way for the $500 million ship.

The 417-foot long, three-masted yacht, which goes by the name Y721 , was relocated from the Oceanco shipyard in Alblasserdam to the Greenport yard just 24 miles away in Rotterdam, according to the German-language daily Der Spiegel.

Video of the towing was posted to YouTube by Dutch yacht enthusiast Hanco Bol.

“We never saw a transport going that fast,” Bol writes of what he witnessed. It took less than three hours for the ship to travel southwest along the Noord canal even though it normally requires nearly twice as much time to traverse the route, according to Bol.

He speculates that Oceanco, the company that was commissioned to build the yacht, chose the timing of the move in order to keep it under wraps given the considerable publicity it has generated.

Rotterdammers who were furious about plans to dismantle “De Hef” bridge , also known as Koningshaven, had threatened to pelt the yacht with eggs if it made the journey.

Bol writes that the yacht’s route was designed to avoid traveling through the Rotterdam city center and underneath “De Hef” — even though it would have saved more time.

Oceanco last month announced that it had dropped its request for the Rotterdam city council to approve the temporary dismantling of the bridge.

The company had indicated that Bezos, the Amazon founder and second-richest person in the world, was willing to foot the bill for the removal of the middle section of the span so that the yacht would be able to sail through the Nieuwe Mass River.

Bol speculates that Oceanco intentionally avoided towing the unfinished yacht underneath “De Hef.”

“I think that was intentional,” he told Der Spiegel. 

“When I was standing on one of the bridges, they shined a searchlight on me, so it wasn’t easy for me to take pictures.”

According to Dutch media reports, it will take several more months for the ship to be completed.

The Post has reached out to Amazon and Oceanco seeking comment.

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Bezos Didn't Even Need to Dismantle Bridge to Move Yacht

Turns out, there were plenty of options for moving the world's largest yacht that didn't involve taking apart the koningshaven bridge in rotterdam..

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ big fancy new boat slipped silently from its berth at a Dutch shipyard in the wee hours of Tuesday morning without needing to dismantle any major historical pieces of infrastructure. Instead, the mega super yacht was towed a little out of its way to another shipyard without its mast.

Apparently, that was always an option.

The vessel, with the catchy name Y721, has been under construction for years and still has many months to go before it’s in the hands of one of history’s wealthiest individuals. Built by Oceanco at a shipyard in Alblasserdam, Netherlands, the company originally announced the masts of the yacht would be too tall to fit under the almost 100-year-old Koningshaven Bridge, which caused quite the controversy in the Netherlands . Oceanco applied for a permit to dismantle the bridge and reassemble it once the Y721 had passed through downtown Rotterdam, all at Bezos’ expense.

Known to locals as De Hef, the former railway bridge is a national heritage site. It was heavily damaged by Luftwaffe bombing during WWII. During renovations in 2017, Rotterdam’s city council promised residents the bridge would never again be dismantled. When Oceanco applied for the permit to do exactly that, the Dutch reacted with anger and a promise to lob eggs at the megayacht as it passed through their city, which over 3,000 people signed up on a Facebook group to do. Some went even further, threatening the company with violence should the bridge be dismantled, according to the German publication Der Spiegel . Rotterdam eventually denied the Oceanco the permit to dismantle De Hef.

Instead, the Y721 slipped out of its original shipyard around 3 a.m. Tuesday morning without its three towering masts and under the power of several tugs to head three hours to the Greenport shipyard in Rotterdam. Footage of the Y721 making its way to its new home was captured by Dutch Yachting :

It took three hours for the yacht to make it to Greenport, a trip that usually takes vessels twice as long under tow. The yacht even took a longer, more complicated route to avoid the bridge altogether, even though without its masts it could have slipped beneath the De Her undeterred. At Greenport, the masts will be installed and the ship will be tested at sea. The testing phase provided another wrinkle in the plan to dismantle the De Hef: After initial testing in open water, yachts often have to return to shipyards for improvements and repairs, which would have required even more bridge dismantling.

The 417-foot superyacht cost Bezos an estimated half-a-billion dollars to build and, when finally underway, will earn the title of largest sailing vessel in the world. Oceanco specializes in “green” sailing yacht and motorized vessels.

Rotterdam Now Won't Dismantle a Historic Bridge for Jeff Bezos's Superyacht

The Amazon founder's new sailing yacht is too tall to pass under the historic Koningshaven bridge.

"We’re happy it’s not happening," Marvin Biljoen, a councilman for GroenLinks, the Dutch Green Party, told the New York Times . "T he bridge is a national monument, which shouldn’t be altered too much. That you could still do that with money anyway bothers us."

Last week, Oceano quietly towed the yacht up the river in the early hours of the morning to a different shipyard, and now, Bezos's boat is nearly completed. The YouTube channel Dutch Yachting shared a video of the boat, and it has three large masts completed:

Expect the superyacht to be on the open seas soon.

Original 2/7/22 : The European port of Rotterdam will dismantle part of its iconic Koningshaven bridge for Jeff Bezos. The billionaire's new yacht is being built in Alblasserdam, in the western Netherlands, and will be too tall to pass under the bridge.

"It's the only route to the sea," a spokesperson for the mayor of Rotterdam told AFP , confirming the news of the bridge's dismantling. According to Dutch news , ship builder Oceanco convinced the city to dismantle part of the bridge. The Rotterdam mayor's spokesperson also confirmed that Bezos would pay for the dismantling and rebuilding of the bridge.

In November, Oceano's chairman, Omani businessman Dr. Mohammed Al Barwani, spoke of the 127 meter (416 feet) sailing yacht the company was working on without mentioning Bezos. Later, Boat International identified the 127m yacht as the one commissioned by the Amazon founder.

The Koningshaven bridge, known locally as the De Hef bridge , was built in 1877. During World War II, the bridge was significantly damaged and rebuilt, subsequently recognized as a historic monument. Between 2014 and 2017, the bridge underwent a restoration, and officials promised it would not be dismantled again.

"From an economic perspective and maintaining employment, the municipality considers this a very important project," Marcel Walravens, the leader of the proposed dismantling project, told Dutch broadcaster Rijnmond . "Rotterdam has also been declared the maritime capital of Europe. Shipbuilding and activity within that sector are therefore an important pillar for the municipality." Walravens says the project will likely take place sometime this summer.

Dennis Tak, a Labor Party city councilor, said he was OK with the dismantling of the Koningshaven bridge because Bezos is paying for it, and it would create jobs. "As a city, this is a great way to take some of his money," Tak told the New York Times .

Dutch residents are not happy, however; they plan to throw rotten eggs at Jeff Bezos's superyacht as it passes through the Rotterdam harbor. Business Insider reports Rotterdam locals are planning an event called "Throwing eggs at Jeff Bezos' superyacht" in protest.

"Calling all Rotterdammers, take a box of rotten eggs with you and let's throw them en masse at Jeff's superyacht when it sails through the Hef in Rotterdam," the event description reads on Facebook. "Rotterdam was built from the rubble by the people of Rotterdam, and we don't just take that apart for the phallic symbol of a megalomaniac billionaire. Not without a fight!" 3,300 people have RSVP'd as going, and 11,600 are interested in the event.

When Bezos's yacht, known as Y721, is delivered later this year—after the bridge is dismantled—the boat will become the world's largest sailing yacht, a title that has been held for nearly a century by American socialite Marjorie Merriweather Post's 1931 boat Sea Cloud .

Along with making history as the largest sailing yacht, Bezos's Y271 is the longest yacht to have ever been built in the Netherlands, and Oceano's largest ever superyacht. It is also rumored to come with a "support yacht," also called a shadow vessel. The superyacht likely cost more than $500 million to build, per Bloomberg .

Bezos is also reportedly the owner of the Flying Fox, a $400 million megayacht.

Emily Burack (she/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, culture, the royals, and a range of other subjects. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma , a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram .

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Jeff Bezos’s $500m yacht stealthily towed out of Dutch shipyard after bridge dismantling controversy

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Jeff Bezos ’s yacht was quietly towed out of a Dutch shipyard this week, German magazine Der Spiegel reports . The ship previously attracted boatloads of controversy after its manufacturer asked the city of Rotterdam to dismantle a historic bridge to let it through.

The yachting firm, Oceanco, eventually withdrew the request, and hauled the Amazon billionaire’s 417-foot vessel to the Greenport shipyard early Tuesday morning, taking a more obscure route outside the city center that didn’t require passing under the bridge in question.

Hanco Bol, a local yachting enthusiast, spotted the transport in progress around 3am and posted a detailed video of the three-hour journey on YouTube.

He speculated that the alternate route was chosen “to keep the launch and transport under wraps”.

"We never saw a transport going that fast," he wrote in the caption of his YouTube video

The Independent has contacted Oceanco for comment.

The yacht, dubbed Y721 and reportedly worth $500m, may have left its original docking in Alblasserdam, Netherlands, but it leaves a checkered reputation behind.

The project came in for a storm of criticism when the shipbuilder asked Rotterdam in February to temporarily take apart the Koningshaven Bridge, a nearly 100-year-old local landmark, to allow the massive, three-mast vessel to pass underneath it.

“There’s a principle at stake,” Stefan Lewis, a former City Council member, told The New York Times , describing the outrage from Rotterdammers. “What can you buy if you have unlimited cash? Can you bend every rule? Can you take apart monuments?”

Locals even planned to egg the yacht as it sailed to its next port.

In July, the Dutch newspaper Trouw reported that Oceanco withdrew its request to dismantle the bridge

"As a result of the reports, shipyard employees feel threatened and the company fears vandalism," Trouw reported, according to public records it uncovered.

Mr Bezos has positioned himself as a leading climate philanthropist, and plans to give away $10bn through his Bezos Earth Fund, but he also lives an extremely high-carbon lifestyle.

The former Amazon CEO is one of the biggest landholders in the US .

Superyachts like the Y721 emit about 1,500 times more carbon than a typical family car per year.

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Jeff Bezos’s Yacht Narrowly Avoids Egging

Residents of Rotterdam, rejoice, for Jeff Bezos’s giant superyacht is officially (almost) out of your waters. Rotterdam citizens were furious earlier this year when reports suggested that Bezos would be paying to disassemble (and then reassemble) the city’s Koningshaven Bridge, also known as De Hef , to allow his massive 417-foot-long yacht to pass through.

Now, months after the initial uproar, Bezos’s boat has been quietly rerouted, slinking away in the middle of the night — not an easy feat considering the boat is being built to house three deck levels, a swimming pool, and a helicopter landing pad (not to mention the accompanying baby yacht).

Citizens of Rotterdam swore in February that, should Bezos’s superyacht traverse the De Hef bridge, they would pelt it with eggs in protest. So, naturally, when it finally came time to move the still-unfinished vessel, called Y721 , out of its current Dutch shipbuilding yard, the decision was made to tow it away under cover of darkness. Like a huge, 200-foot-tall bandit.

According to a video captured by Dutch Yachting , a yacht-enthusiast news channel on YouTube, Bezos’s pet project left the shipbuilding yard at 1 a.m. and arrived at the yard in Greenport, Rotterdam, sometime around 3 a.m. The website claimed that the yacht actually took a roundabout way out, passing by four bridge openings to make a 24-mile route, supposedly opting out of an alternative 14-mile route to avoid passing under De Hef.

The superyacht’s construction will continue in the Greenport yard, far away from De Hef and the angry, egg-holding residents of Rotterdam.

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Jeff Bezos’ $500m superyacht stuck after firm decides against dismantling historic Dutch bridge, says report

• Oops! Something went wrong. Please try again later. More content below

Jeff Bezos ’ $500m superyacht is stuck after the Dutch firm building it decided against dismantling a historic Rotterdam bridge following a public backlash and threats of an egg-throwing protest, says a report.

The billionaire Amazon founder had offered to pay for the middle section of the decommissioned Koningshavenbrug to be removed so that his monster 412ft sailing yacht, which is named Y721, could reach the ocean from its shipyard.

The yacht, currently the second-largest in the world, cannot get under the “De Hef” bridge without the modification taking place. But the plan has now been cancelled by manufacturer Oceanco after the criticism it faced, according to Dutch news outlet Trouw .

Back in Februayr it was announced thay Oceanco had asked the city to temporarily remove the bridge, which dates from 1878 and was last renovated in 2017.

Marcel Walravens who managed the renovation project, told RTV that it was “not practical” to partially finish the vessel and complete construction elsewhere.

“If you carry out a big job somewhere, you want all your tools in that place. Otherwise you have to go back and forth constantly. In addition, this is such a large project that there are hardly any locations where this work is finished.”

And he added: “From an economic perspective and maintaining employment, the municipality considers this a very important project. Rotterdam has also been declared the maritime capital of Europe.”

History groups in Rotterdam opposed the works, with thousands of Facebook users signing a petition promising to egg the yacht as it travelled through the city towards the open ocean.

“Calling all Rotterdammers take a box of rotten eggs with you, and let’s throw them en masse at Jeff’s superyacht when it sails through the Hef in Rotterdam,” wrote event organiser Pablo Strörmann on the social media platform.

Now Oceanco has informed city officials that It reports, as quoted by the NL Times, that Oceanco has “informed the municipality that it is canceling its current logistical plans.”

And the news organisation said that employees at the company “feel threatened and the company fears it will be vandalised”, according to DutchNews.nl

It is unclear how the yacht will now be moved from the construction site to the open water.

The Independent has reached out to Mr Bezos and Oceanco for comment.

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According to boat international, the koru is the world’s largest sailing yacht, and reportedly cost an estimated $500 million to build, by monica galarza • published november 28, 2023 • updated on november 29, 2023 at 12:37 pm.

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Jeff Bezos’s Superyacht Was Quietly Towed Out of a Dutch Shipyard After Local Pushback

The amazon founder's yacht was relocated after local residents in the netherlands refused to dismantle a historic bridge for it to sail through..

A newly built superyacht reportedly owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was quietly removed from a shipyard in the Netherlands this week after an attempt failed to have a local historic bridge dismantled to make room for its passage.

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The 417-foot-long vessel, called Y721, was towed from a shipyard in Alblasserdam, Netherlands to Rotterdam, located about 13 miles away, in the early morning of August 2, according to the German magazine Der Spiegel .

Dutch Yachting, a yacht fan club, posted a video on YouTube of Bezos’ yacht leaving the shipyard in the dead of night. The video has garnered more than 240,000 views.

Y721 has been under construction by Oceanco, a Dutch shipbuilding company, commissioned by Bezos, since 2018. The giant vessel is about half the length of the RMS Titanic and estimated to cost $500 million. Upon completion, it will be the world’s largest sailing yacht, according to Boat International .

Y721 became the center of controversy in February after Oceanco requested that the city of Rotterdam dismantle part of a historic bridge to allow Bezos’s yacht to pass through. The bridge was in the way of the ship’s only route to the sea and had a clearance too low for it to sail through.

The news caused a stir in the local community, because the bridge, officially called Koningshaven Bridge and locally known as De Hef, is a cherished landmark. Some local residents organized protests on social media, despite the Rotterdam government promising to rebuild the bridge back to its original form and Oceanco agreeing to pay for the operation.

Pressured by the pushback, Oceanco in late June decided not to apply for the relevant permit to dismantle the bridge, Bloomberg reported.

Hanco Bol, a Dutch Yachting member who shot the viral YouTube video, speculated that Oceanco chose to move the yacht in early morning hours to avoid public attention, he wrote in the YouTube video’s description section. He said the relocation started at about 1 a.m. on August 2 and the yacht departed at 3 a.m.

The vessel was towed without its masts, so it could have fit under the Koningshaven Bridge. But the ship took a route that was longer than necessary and avoided passing through the bridge and the Rotterdam city center.

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Jeff Bezos' new yacht in Netherlands under fire, thousands RSVP to throw eggs at it

Rotterdam residents are taking aim at a superyacht so big it'll require a bridge to be moved to get out to sea.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the world’s richest man, and he commissioned the world’s largest sailing yacht — so big that in order to get it out to sea, he’s offering to pay to take apart and reassemble a historic bridge that it needs to pass to get out of Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

It may result in the world’s biggest scrambled eggs, if a planned Facebook event to hurl rotten eggs at the $485 million vessel is as popular as its signup sheet suggests.

Facebook user Pablo Strörmann, a Rotterdam resident, stirred up " Eieren gooien naar superjacht Jeff Bezos (Throwing eggs at superyacht Jeff Bezos )" earlier this month, inviting the "the international Egg tossing community" to bombard Bezos’ boat on June 1. More than 20,000 people had marked themselves as going or interested in going as of Wednesday afternoon.

A general view of "De Hef" as the city of Rotterdam has agreed to remove a section of the historic bridge to make way for a superyacht, reportedly built for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Feb. 3, 2022.  (REUTERS/Piroschka Van De Wouw / Reuters Photos)

"For our international guests: Calling all Rotterdammers, take a box of rotten eggs with you, and let's throw them en masse at Jeff's superyacht when it sails through the Hef in Rotterdam," the event’s description reads. 

JEFF BEZOS TO DISMANTLE HISTORIC DUTCH BRIDGE FOR SUPERYACHT

The Hef is a nickname for the 145-year-old Koningshaven Bridge. It has just 130 feet of clearance, according to Dutch media. The yacht, dubbed Y721, needs more than that to pass beneath. On the sunny side, Bezos and the shipbuilder, Oceanco, have offered to cover the cost of temporarily removing and replacing the bridge in order to get the new superyacht out.

"Normally it’s the other way around," Strörmann told the Netherlands-based NL Times last week. "If your ship doesn’t fit under a bridge, you make it smaller — but when you happen to be the richest person on Earth, you just ask a municipality to dismantle a monument. That’s ridiculous."

DUTCH MAYOR DENIES REPORT CITY WILL DISMANTLE BRIDGE FOR BEZOS YACHT

A Facebook group associated with the event had several hundred members, with views on the event scrambled together.

"How many people throw eggs one day and buy from Amazon the next?" one of them asked.

Another shared plans for how to build "a cannon that fires eggs at a high rate of speed and launches them to great distances" out of PVC piping.

Representatives for Bezos did not immediately respond to FOX Business’ request for comment.

The Y721 is a three-masted aluminum and steel schooner about 417 feet long, according to Boat International . In addition to being the largest sailing yacht ever constructed, it’s also the largest yacht of any kind produced in the Netherlands, according to the outlet.

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Rotterdam Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb said earlier this month that city officials had not yet reached a decision on how to proceed.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Has the World Finally Had a Glimpse of Jeff Bezos’s $500 Million Mega-Yacht?

By Shivani Vora

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is appears to be getting closer to welcoming the superyacht he reportedly commissioned in 2018: a fancy toy fitting for the world’s second-richest person, given that it costs a reported $500 million and breaks one world record after another.

Called Y721, this vessel of all vessels is being custom designed by Dutch builder Oceanco and was spotted at a shipyard last week in Zwijndrecht, a town in the western Netherlands. It’s reportedly heading to another Netherlands town, Alblasserdam, for a final fitting. With a length of 417 feet, Y721 is the biggest sailing yacht in the world and the longest vessel to be built in the Netherlands. Features include a black hull, classic shape, three large decks, and three masts.

Superyacht Bravo Eugenia , belonging to the U.S. billionaire Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, was built by Oceanco, which is also rumored to be behind Bezos’s new massive vessel.

Y721 is going to totally change the world of yachting with its design and innovation, says Fernando Nicholson, a luxury yacht sales broker with the yachting company Camper & Nicholsons. “It’s a boat with the latest technology and bells and whistles that have never been seen,” he says. “This will be the standard for all superyachts to follow, but in years to come, when its features become more affordable. Right now, only someone with Bezos’s wealth can swing the cost.”

The superyacht is said to be modeled after Oceanco’s famous yacht, the Black Pearl , which the company site says , “is one of the largest and most ecological sailing yachts in the world. She can cross the Atlantic without burning even a liter of fossil fuel.” Y721 will go through sea trails following its fitting-out in Alblasserdam and is expected to be ready sometime next year.

The Flying Fox , allegedly owned by Bezos.

However, it’s only one of two new boats for Bezos: He has also commissioned a shadow vessel called YS 7512 from builder Damen Yachts. This support ship measures 246 feet in length and accommodates 45 additional crew and guests. It will also feature a helipad and meeting space and have a vast amount of storage for Bezos’s endless number of water toys, with diving and snorkeling gear, jet and water skis, waterslides, and surfboards among the bunch. Shadow vessels are a growing phenomenon in the superyacht industry and one more extra toy that their owners want to have at the ready, says Nicholson. “You see them more and more now as an add-on to a superyacht purchase,” he says. “They’ve almost become a must.”

There’s no doubt that Bezos will be sailing the high seas in full panache and style come 2022. But really, is there any other way when you have more money than almost anyone else in the world and attract an endless amount of attention too?

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Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Enjoy Beverly Hills Date Night at Pre-Oscars Dinner Party

The Amazon CEO and journalist have been dating since 2019 and engaged since 2023

Stefanie Keenan/WireImage

Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez spent a night out with the stars!

On Saturday, the Amazon CEO and Emmy Award-winning journalist stepped out to attend the Chanel and Charles Finch Annual Pre-Oscar Dinner at Beverly Hills’ Polo Lounge.

At the event, a dinner for nominees, actors, filmmakers and more, the couple posed for photos together, showing off their sleek couple style.

For the Chanel-hosted event, which was also attended by Margot Robbie , Kristen Stewart and more, Bezos, 60, donned a sleek gray suit, which he layered over a black T-shirt and paired with buckled dress shoes.

Sánchez, 54, complemented her fiancé in a blingy, all-black look. The journalist wore a long-sleeve dress with a plunging V-neck and black pumps, and added sparkle with a stack of bracelets, layered chokers and a classic Chanel clutch.

She also sported a glossy lip courtesy of Chanel, as well as some skincare French fashion house, she revealed in an Instagram Story post.

In photos from the event, Bezos could be seen posing with his arm wrapped around Sánchez, whom he popped the question to last year .

The couple’s Beverly Hills date night comes on the heels of the billionaire and businesswoman’s move to Miami, which Bezos announced in November .

Last month, the couple was spotted settling into the Florida city, walking arm-in-arm on a daytime date at the Coconut Grove Arts Festival.

Bezos and Sánchez have been dating for over four years, and PEOPLE confirmed that the pair was engaged last May.

The news came as they were on vacation together in the South of France, where they attended the premiere of one of this year’s Oscar-nominated films, Killers of the Flower Moon, at the Cannes Film Festival.

At the time, a source told PEOPLE the couple was enjoying their new relationship status . "They're on cloud nine — so happy and madly in love,” the insider told PEOPLE.

" Her engagement ring is beyond stunning,” the source added. “And huge! She keeps playing with it and looking at it. You can tell she loves it.”

Never miss a story — sign up for  PEOPLE's free daily newsletter  to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Dolly Faibyshev/WWD via Getty

And the engaged couple, who enjoy frequent date nights and star-studded outings together, also gush about each other online.

In January, Sánchez dedicated a sweet Instagram post to Bezos on his birthday .

Alongside a collection of photos that included a picture of the businessman as a child and one of the couple together, she wrote, "Today is another day where your laughter fills our home, and that smile of yours lights up every room.”

“Wishing you an abundance of simple joys and quiet moments of happiness," Sánchez continued. "May this year be filled with everything you love, from peaceful mornings to joyous celebrations. I hope each day brings you countless reasons to smile, just like you give me a reason to smile every single day. Love you, and happy birthday, my love.”

Elon Musk is lashing out at MacKenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos' ex, for donating billions to charities for women and minorities

• MacKenzie Scott has given away billions to charity since her split from Jeff Bezos in 2019.
• But Elon Musk isn't a fan of Scott's philanthropy. 
• Musk claimed that women such as Scott were why Western civilization was doomed.

Elon Musk isn't a fan of MacKenzie Scott 's charitable giving.

"'Super rich ex-wives who hate their former spouse' should filed be listed among 'Reasons that Western Civilization died,'" Musk wrote in an X post referencing Jeff Bezos' ex-wife.

Musk was responding to another user who said Scott had been giving money to organizations that " deal with issues of race and/or gender ."

“Super rich ex-wives who hate their former spouse” should filed be listed among “Reasons that Western Civilization died” — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 6, 2024

It's unclear why Musk singled out Scott in particular, but he has been an avowed and extremely vocal critic of efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion .

"DEI is just another word for racism. Shame on anyone who uses it," Musk wrote on X in January.

This isn't the first time Musk has slammed Scott over her philanthropy.

In May 2022, Musk said he planned to vote Republican because he thought the Democratic Party had given his companies Tesla and Space X "a very cold shoulder." Musk said he thought his companies were being sidelined partly because Scott had donated to " PACs posing as charities ."

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"It's safe to say that MacKenzie [ahem] Scott is not exactly a big fan of her ex-husband. Unfortunately, a lot of others are getting caught in the crossfire," Musk wrote in an X post at the time.

Scott was married to Bezos for 25 years before they finalized their divorce in 2019. Scott received $38 billion worth of Amazon shares in the settlement terms.

Since then, Scott has made waves with her philanthropy.

In 2022, Scott said in a Medium post that she'd donated nearly $2 billion to "343 organizations supporting the voices and opportunities of people from underserved communities." Scott's donations that year included $275 million to Planned Parenthood .

Unlike most philanthropists, who dispense funding for causes that impose specific reporting requirements , Scott has adopted a no-strings-attached approach toward her giving. This has won Scott plaudits from organizations who relish the autonomy she has given them.

"The most cherished gifts are definitely those that are unrestricted because a complex university has a wide variety of needs," Ruth Simmons, the then-president of Prairie View A&M University, told the Associated Press .

The university received a $50 million donation from Scott in 2020, one of the largest donations it had ever gotten.

Scott's ex, Bezos, has a different approach to giving. He told CNN in November 2022 that while he planned to give away his wealth, he'd found engaging in philanthropy as difficult as building Amazon.

"The hard part is figuring out how to do it in a levered way," Bezos told CNN.

"There are a bunch of ways that I think you could do ineffective things, too. So you have to think about it carefully, and you have to have brilliant people on the team," Bezos said.

To be sure, Musk does engage in philanthropy as well. In 2021, Musk donated $5.7 billion in Tesla shares to the Musk Foundation, a charity he started with his brother, Kimbal, in 2002.

The foundation has donated to various causes, including renewable energy, space exploration, and artificial intelligence, according to its website . The group donated $160 million to nonprofits in 2021, including $55 million to the St Jude Children's Research Hospital, Bloomberg reported.

Representatives for Musk and Scott did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

Watch: MacKenzie Bezos pledged to donate more than half of her life's fortune. Here's how she went from one of Amazon's first employees to an award-winning novelist.

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Jeff Bezos just gave $100 million to actress Eva Longoria and the retired admiral who oversaw the capture of Osama bin Laden to use as they see fit

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, have given away $100 million to a retired Navy admiral and actress Eva Longoria as part of the billionaire’s annual prize to individuals who make significant contributions to society.

The Desperate Housewives star and Bill McRaven, a veteran and former chancellor of the University of Texas System, have been awarded $50 million each to help those in need.

Bezos—who has a net worth of around $200 billion —launched the Courage and Civility Award in 2021 to support philanthropists.

Van Jones, a lawyer and CNN commentator, and the lauded chef and humanitarian José Andrés were the first recipients of the prize. 

“ We need unifiers and not vilifiers ,” Bezos commented on the reason for launching the award, before revealing the inaugural prize winners.

“People who argue hard and act hard for what they truly believe, but always with civility and never ad hominem attacks. And unfortunately, we live in a world where this is too often not the case.”

Since then, country singing icon Dolly Parton took home the 2022 award , after donating $1 million toward Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine research and books to millions of children through her foundation Imagination Library.

How will Eva Longoria and Bill McRaven use the money?

Twelve years on from embodying Wisteria Lane’s housewife Gabrielle Solis, Longoria has gone on to become a director, the CEO of her own production company, UnbeliEVAble Entertainment, and a political activist. 

In 2021 she founded the Eva Longoria Foundation “to help Latinas build better futures for themselves and their families through education and entrepreneurship,” according to its website.

The charitable body achieves that through a variety of programs for aspirational Latinx, including mentorship and access to funding.

With her portion of the award money, Longoria told Elle that she plans to “ continue doing what I’ve been doing ” with the Eva Longoria Foundation and Eva’s Heroes, a charitable organization within the foundation that supports the special needs community.

Longoria said that her charitable focus is on women because they “are the changemakers in families.” 

“When you help a woman, she helps her family. And then when you help families, you improve communities. And when you improve communities, you can improve nations,” she added.

Meanwhile, McRaven—who oversaw the 2011 raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden—has pledged to use the money to develop education programs for future military leaders and the children of deceased veterans, as well as mental health support for those who serve.

“The opportunity to use this incredible gift to help veterans and their families is the dream of a lifetime, and I am so grateful to Lauren and Jeff for giving me this opportunity,” he said in a statement to CNN .

Bezos says he is on a mission to give away his wealth

The world’s second-richest man (behind only LVMH’s boss Bernard Arnault, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index) didn’t hand out the charitable award last year, but he’s been on a wider mission to give away the majority of his wealth during his lifetime.

Since stepping down as Amazon’s CEO, Bezos has increased his philanthropic efforts and has committed $10 billion to climate change efforts, through an initiative called the Bezos Earth Fund.

Last year, he gave out $117 million in grants to support homeless families through his Bezos Day 1 Families Fund, bringing his total donations to nearly $640 million.

However, critics have in the past been skeptical about just how philanthropic the billionaire really is.

“He’s committed a large amount of money. But it still feels very, very half-baked,” Benjamin Soskis , who researches philanthropy for the Urban Institute, previously told Time . 

Plus, Bezos still hasn’t signed the Giving Pledge. 

Launched by Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates, and Warren Buffett in 2010, the campaign encourages billionaires from across industries to commit to giving away at least half of their fortunes to charitable causes.

So far, it’s been signed by 242 billionaires including Elon Musk and even Bezos’s ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott.

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Highlights From SpaceX’s Starship Test Flight

The powerful rocket, a version of which will carry astronauts to the moon for NASA, launched for the third time on Thursday morning. It achieved a number of milestones before losing contact with the ground.

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Kenneth Chang

Here’s what happened during the third test flight of the most powerful rocket ever built.

Spacex launches starship for third time, the rocket, a version of which will eventually carry nasa astronauts to the moon, traveled almost halfway around the earth before it was lost as it re-entered the atmosphere..

“Five, four, three, two, three, one.” “This point, we’ve already passed through Max-Q, maximum dynamic pressure. And passing supersonic, so we’re now moving faster than the speed of sound. Getting those on-board views from the ship cameras. Boosters now making its way back, seeing six engines ignited on ship. Kate, we got a Starship on its way to space and a booster on the way back to the Gulf.” “Oh, man. I need a moment to pick my jaw up from the floor because these views are just stunning.”

The third try turned out to be closer to the charm for Elon Musk and SpaceX, as his company’s mammoth Starship rocket launched on Thursday and traveled about halfway around the Earth before it was lost as it re-entered the atmosphere.

The test flight achieved several key milestones in the development of the vehicle, which could alter the future of space transportation and help NASA return astronauts to the moon.

This particular flight was not, by design, intended to make it all the way around the Earth. At 8:25 a.m. Central time, Starship — the biggest and most powerful rocket ever to fly — lifted off from the coast of South Texas. The ascent was smooth, with the upper Starship stage reaching orbital velocities. About 45 minutes after launch, it started re-entering the atmosphere, heading toward a belly-flop splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

Live video, conveyed in near real-time via SpaceX’s Starlink satellites , showed red-hot gases heating the underside of the vehicle. Then, 49 minutes after launch, communications with Starship ended, and SpaceX later said the vehicle had not survived the re-entry, presumably disintegrating and falling into the ocean.

Even so, Bill Nelson, the administrator of NASA, congratulated SpaceX on what he called a “successful test flight” of the system his agency is counting on for some of its Artemis lunar missions.

SpaceX aims to make both the vehicle’s lower rocket booster and the upper spacecraft stage capable of flying over and over again — a stark contrast to the single-launch throwaway rockets that have been used for most of the space age.

That reusability gives SpaceX the potential to drive down the cost of lofting satellites and telescopes, as well as people and the things they need to live in space.

Completing most of the short jaunt was a reassuring validation that the rocket’s design appears to be sound. Not only is Starship crucial for NASA’s lunar plans, it is the key to Mr. Musk’s pipe dream of sending people to live on Mars.

For Mr. Musk, the success also harks back to his earlier reputation as a technological visionary who led breakthrough advances at Tesla and SpaceX, a contrast with his troubled purchase of Twitter and the polarizing social media quagmire that has followed since he transformed the platform and renamed it X. Even as SpaceX launched its next-generation rocket, the social media company was dueling with Don Lemon , a former CNN anchor who was sharing clips from a combative interview with Mr. Musk.

SpaceX still needs to pull off a series of formidable rocketry firsts before Starship is ready to head to the moon and beyond. Earlier this week, Mr. Musk said he hoped for at least six more Starship flights this year, during which some of those experiments may occur.

But if it achieves them all, the company could again revolutionize the space transportation business and leave competitors far behind.

Phil Larson, a White House space adviser during the Obama administration who also previously worked on communication efforts at SpaceX, said Starship’s size and reusability had “massive potential to change the game in transportation to orbit. And it could enable whole new classes of missions.”

NASA is counting on Starship to serve as the lunar lander for Artemis III, a mission that will take astronauts to the surface of the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. That journey is currently scheduled for late 2026 but seems likely to slide to 2027 or later.

The third flight was a marked improvement from the first two launch attempts.

Last April, Starship made it off the launchpad, but a cascade of engine failures and fires in the booster led to the rocket’s destruction 24 miles above the Gulf of Mexico.

In November, the second Starship launch traveled much farther. All 33 engines in the Super Heavy booster worked properly during ascent, and after a successful separation, the upper Starship stage nearly made it to orbital velocities. However, both stages ended up exploding.

Nonetheless, Mr. Musk hailed both test flights as successes, as they provided data that helped engineers improve the design.

Thursday’s launch — which coincided with the 22nd anniversary of the founding of SpaceX — occurred 85 minutes into a 110-minute launch window. The 33 engines in the booster ignited at the launch site outside Brownsville, Texas, and lifted the rocket, which was as tall as a 40-story building, into the morning sky.

Most of the flight proceeded smoothly, and a number of test objectives were achieved during the flight, like opening and closing the spacecraft’s payload doors, which will be needed to deliver cargo in the future.

SpaceX did not attempt to recover the booster this time, but did have it perform engine burns that will be needed to return to the launch site. However, the final landing burn for the booster, conducted over the Gulf of Mexico, did not fully succeed — an area that SpaceX will attempt to fix for future flights.

SpaceX said the Super Heavy disintegrated at an altitude of about 1,500 feet.

SpaceX engineers will also have to figure out why Starship did not survive re-entry and make fixes to the design of the vehicle.

Even with the partial success of Thursday’s flight, Starship is far from ready to go to Mars, or even the moon. Because of Mr. Musk’s ambitions for Mars, Starship is much larger and much more complicated than what NASA needs for its Artemis moon landings. For Artemis III, two astronauts are to spend about a week in the South Pole region of the moon.

“He had the low price,” Daniel Dumbacher, the executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a former high-level official at NASA, said of Mr. Musk, “and NASA chose to take the risk associated with that configuration hoping that it would work out. And we’ll see if that turns out to be true.”

To leave Earth’s orbit, Starship must have its propellant tanks refilled with liquid methane and liquid oxygen. That will require a complex choreography of additional Starship launches to take the propellants to orbit.

“This is a complicated, complicated problem, and there’s a lot that has to get sorted out, and a lot that has to work right,” Mr. Dumbacher said.

Thursday’s flight included an early test of that technology, moving liquid oxygen from one tank to another within Starship.

Mr. Dumbacher does not expect Starship to be ready by September 2026, the launch date NASA currently has for Artemis III, although he would not predict how much of a delay there might be. “I’m not going to give you a guess because there is way too much work, way too many problems to solve,” he said.

Kenneth Chang and Michael Roston

A rare sight: Starship’s bright orange glow as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere.

Just past the 45-minute mark of the Starship vehicle’s journey through space on Thursday, something eerie happened. As it drifted high above Earth’s oceans and clouds, the spacecraft’s silvery exterior was overtaken by a brilliant and fiery orange glow.

Starship re-entering Earth's atmosphere. Views through the plasma pic.twitter.com/HEQX4eEHWH — SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 14, 2024

When a spacecraft re-enters the atmosphere, the air beneath it gets hot — hot enough that it turns into a plasma of charged particles as electrons are stripped away from the air molecules. The charged particles create picturesque glows, like neon signs.

But seeing this happen in nearly real-time during a spaceflight is uncommon. That plasma disrupts radio signals, cutting off communication.

Such blackouts happen, for instance, when SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule returns to Earth from the International Space Station with its complement of four astronauts. Mission controllers must wait with bated breath to be reassured that the spacecraft’s heat shield has held up and protected the crew during atmospheric re-entry.

Until Starship succumbed to the intense forces of re-entry on Thursday, SpaceX used its Starlink internet satellites to relay the live video feed. The Starlink satellites are in higher orbits, and sending signals upward — away from the plasma — is easier than trying to communicate through it to antennas on the ground.

But Starship wasn’t the only spacecraft in recent weeks to give us a view of plasma heating. Varda Space, a startup that is developing technology for manufacturing in orbit, had cameras on a capsule it landed on Earth on Feb. 21. Before it parachuted to the ground, its Winnebago capsule recorded a day-glow re-entry. The company retrieved the video recording from the capsule and shared it online:

Here's a video of our capsule ripping through the atmosphere at mach 25, no renders, raw footage: pic.twitter.com/ZFWzdjBwad — Varda Space Industries (@VardaSpace) February 28, 2024

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Jeff Bezos’s rocket company could race SpaceX to the moon.

Which billionaire space company will get to the moon first: Elon Musk’s SpaceX or Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin?

At first glance, SpaceX seems to have a huge head start. It is about to launch the third test flight of Starship. A variation of Starship is scheduled to take NASA astronauts to the surface of the moon as soon as September 2026.

By contrast, Blue Origin has yet to launch anything into orbit, and its contract with NASA for a lunar lander for astronauts is for a mission that is launching in 2030.

But Blue Origin might still get there first. SpaceX faces major challenges with Starship, which is as tall as 16-story building, while Blue Origin plans to send a smaller cargo lander to the moon by the end of next year.

“This lander, we’re expecting to land on the moon between 12 and 16 months from today,” John Couluris, senior vice president of lunar permanence at Blue Origin, said during a n interview on the CBS News program “60 Minutes” this month.

The first launch of the Mark 1 version of the Blue Moon lander is what Blue Origin calls a “pathfinder” to test technologies like the BE-7 engine, the flight computers, avionics and power systems — the same systems that will be used in the much larger Mark 2 lander that will take astronauts to the moon’s surface.

The Mark 1 lander can carry up to three tons of cargo to the lunar surface, but will be small enough to fit inside one of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rockets . New Glenn has yet to fly, but the company says its debut journey will occur later this year.

After Blue Moon Mark 1 is launched into an orbit about 125 miles above Earth’s surface, the lander’s BE-7 engine will propel it toward the moon, slowing it down to enter orbit around the moon and then guiding it to the landing on the surface.

The smaller size means that the Mark 1 lander, unlike Starship, will not need to be refueled before leaving Earth orbit. Demonstrating that refueling technology in orbit will be a key test to validate Starship’s design. Refueling will also be needed for the Blue Moon Mark 2 lander.

Mr. Musk and Mr. Bezos have already been beaten to the moon by another billionaire, Kam Ghaffarian , one of the founders of Intuitive Machines, which put a small robotic lander named Odysseus near the lunar south pole in February . That was the first private spacecraft to successfully make it to the moon’s surface in one piece (although its journey had some hiccups ).

As with every American rocket mishap, the Federal Aviation Administration will open an investigation to review what went wrong and what SpaceX needs to do to correct it. But if, as Elon Musk says, there are at least six more Starship flights this year, SpaceX will have opportunities to complete a full test flight.

Starship's third flight went very far, but like its first two flights, it was not a complete success. The landing burn for the Super Heavy booster stage of the rocket — the aim was to “land” it in the Gulf of Mexico — was not fully successful, and the Starship craft did not survive re-entry. But it was marked significant progress, because none of the problems from the earlier flights recurred, and SpaceX engineers now have data to tackle the new problems.

Michael Roston

On the social media site X, Bill Nelson, the administrator of NASA, congratulated SpaceX on what he called a “successful test flight” of Starship. The agency is counting on Starship to land astronauts on the moon’s surface as part of the Artemis III mission. Another vehicle, the Orion capsule, is to be used to bring those astronauts back to Earth.

SpaceX says Starship did not survive re-entry, but it achieved several key milestones during the flight. That marks significant progress since the second test flight. Elon Musk has said he hopes there will be a half-dozen Starship flights this year.

SpaceX says a dual loss of communication, both through its own Starlink satellites and other forms spacecraft communications with Earth, suggest that Starship did not survive re-entry. They’re still listening to see if radio contact resumes.

Video is gone. Telemetry is also stuck at a speed 25,707 kilometers per hour and an altitude of 65 kilometers. The reason is not clear.

Starship already has private customers booked for deep space trips.

Starship has not yet done a full orbit of the Earth, but SpaceX already has three private astronaut missions on its manifest for the spacecraft.

The first flight with astronauts aboard will be led by Jared Isaacman who previously bought an orbital trip on a Falcon 9 rocket that was known as Inspiration4 .

Then two other Starship flights will travel around the moon and back, one led by Yusaku Maezawa , a Japanese entrepreneur, and the other by Dennis Tito, who was the first private individual to buy a trip to the International Space Station in 2001.

Back in 2018 when Mr. Maezawa signed up for the lunar flyby, Mr. Musk said Starship would be ready by 2023.

Mr. Maezawa later called the mission ‘dearMoon,’ inviting people to apply for a seat on the trip. Last week, he acknowledged it was not going to happen this year.

“We were planning for our lunar orbital mission ‘dearMoon’ to take place in 2023, but seems like it will take a little longer,” he wrote on the social network X. “We’re not sure when the flight will be, but we will give you all an update once we know more.”

SpaceX is apparently also planning uncrewed cargo flights to the surface of the moon with Starship.

In March last year, a small start-up company, Astrolab, announced that it was sending a Jeep Wrangler-size rover to surface in the south polar region of the moon , and the ride would be a cargo Starship flight that would take it there.

SpaceX did not confirm the news.

This appears to be part of the expanding potential market for Starship. SpaceX also plans to use the rocket for launching its second generation of Starlink internet communications satellites .

Starship is re-entering Earth's atmosphere. We’re seeing the heating on the flaps, with video being transmitted to the ground through SpaceX's Starlink satellites. The view is incredible. Usually the plasma disrupts radio transmissions.

SpaceX skipped the restart of one of the Raptor engines on the upper stage of Starship. It did conduct the propellant transfer test and the opening and closing of the payload door, which means the flight achieved some of its experimental objectives during its coast around the Earth, but not others. Next stop: Re-entry through the atmosphere and a hard bellyflop in the Indian Ocean.

The music on the livestream is more old-fashioned than the ambient beats we’re used to during SpaceX video feeds. But there’s nothing old-fashioned about the views in space from the rocket, which are unreal, but have not always been visible as its connection to the ground comes and goes.

During this period of the flight, Starship is scheduled to perform several tests. The first, opening the payload door, is complete. It will also move several tons of liquid oxygen between two tanks within Starship. That’s a preliminary test for future in-orbit refueling between two Starships, which is critical for sending the vehicle to the moon. Finally, Starship will try to restart one of its Raptor engines in the vacuum of space, something it has not done before.

The payload door of the upper Starship rocket stage is now open. That’s how a future Starship will deploy Starlink satellites, and demonstrating that it works was one of the objectives of today's flight.

The engines on the upper-stage of the rocket successfully completed their burn. Starship is now coasting in space, on a trajectory that will re-enter the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean.

We were watching the booster attempting to land in the Gulf of Mexico. But the camera feed cut off, and we're not sure what actually happened. The upper stage Starship is still continuing on its trajectory toward the Indian Ocean.

The Super Heavy booster stage of the rocket appears to be headed back to Earth. During the last attempt, the booster exploded at this point, so it looks like SpaceX has fixed that issue.

The large Super Heavy booster stage has separated from the Starship upper stage, which is on its way to space. The flight is looking good.

All 33 Raptor engines in the booster are working fine. So far everything looks good.

Less than 2 minutes until liftoff. Propellant tanks are full, and wind will not prevent an on-time liftoff.

Starship is less than 10 minutes away from its third launch. The countdown is going smoothly.

What will happen during Starship’s third test flight.

For its third test flight, Starship aims to fly part of the way around the Earth, starting from SpaceX’s launch site in Boca Chica Village, Texas, and splashing down in the Indian Ocean.

The earlier test flights — both of which ended in explosions — aimed to come down in waters off Hawaii. SpaceX said it had set the new flight path to allow for safe testing of things it hadn’t done before with the Starship vehicle.

The journey will start at the site that SpaceX calls Starbase, which is a few miles north of where Texas and Mexico meet along the Gulf of Mexico. The rocket, nearly 400 feet tall, will be mounted next to a launch tower that is about 480 feet tall. It will be filled with methane and liquid oxygen propellants during the hours before liftoff.

Three seconds before launch, computers will begin to ignite the 33 engines in the Super Heavy rocket booster beneath Starship.

Starship and Super Heavy will begin their ascent over the Gulf. At 52 seconds into the flight, SpaceX says, the vehicle will experience the heaviest atmospheric stress of its trip, a moment flight engineers call max-q.

If the stainless steel spacecraft survives that stress, the next key moment will occur 2 minutes and 42 seconds into flight, when most of the Super Heavy booster’s engines power down. Seconds later, the upper Starship vehicle will begin “hot-staging,” or lighting up its engines before separating from Super Heavy.

Super Heavy’s journey will end about seven minutes after launch. SpaceX would typically aim to return the massive rocket booster to the launch site for a vertical landing. But for the test flight, the spent Super Heavy will perform a series of maneuvers before firing its engines one last time to slow its descent into the Gulf of Mexico.

As Super Heavy is descending, Starship will be gaining altitude. About eight and a half minutes into its flight, its engines will switch off. It will then begin coasting around the Earth.

While floating through space, Starship will attempt several things that the spacecraft has never done. Nearly 12 minutes into the flight, it will open a door that in the future could deploy satellites and other cargo into space. About 12 minutes later, it will transfer propellants from one tank to another while in space, a technique needed for future journeys to the moon and beyond. Then, 40 minutes into the flight, Starship will relight one if its engines while in space.

If the spacecraft makes it through those experiments, the conclusion of Starship’s journey will start at about the 49-minute mark. The spacecraft is set to pivot horizontally into a belly-flop to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere. If it survives the extreme temperatures, Starship will splash down 64 minutes after it left Texas. The company has said in the past that it expects the belly-flop ocean landing to end in an explosion .

After SpaceX completes its testing campaign, future Starship flights will return to the Texas Starbase site after they complete their missions in orbit. SpaceX is also building a launch tower for Starship at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where flights could one day launch and land, including the Artemis III mission that NASA plans to use to return American astronauts to the moon’s surface.

SpaceX has started the company’s official live video stream from Texas, a sign that it is serious about igniting the rocket in about 20 minutes. You can watch it in the video player embedded above.

What went right and wrong during the 2nd Starship test flight.

The second test flight of Starship in November got a lot higher and faster than the first attempt seven months earlier.

During the first launch outside Brownsville, Texas, in April last year, things went wrong from the start — the exhaust of the engines of the Super Heavy booster excavated a hole beneath the launchpad, sending pieces of concrete flying up to three-quarters of a mile away and a plume of dust drifting 6.5 miles, blanketing the nearby town of Port Isabel. Several of the booster engines failed, and the upper stage never separated from the booster.

Instead, the rocket started making loop-de-loops before the flight termination system destroyed it.

During the second test flight , all 33 of the booster engines worked during ascent. A water deluge system protected the launchpad. The upper Starship stage separated from the booster and then made it most of the way to orbital velocity. However, the journeys of both the booster and the upper Starship stage still ended in explosions.

For the booster, as it dropped away from the upper stage, 13 of the 33 engines fired again to guide it toward the landing location. Although this particular booster was not going to be recovered, SpaceX wanted to test the re-entry techniques that are similar to what it currently uses for its smaller Falcon 9 rockets. However, something went wrong. Several engines shut down and then one blew up, causing the destruction of the booster.

In an update posted on the company’s website on Feb. 26 , SpaceX said the most likely cause of the booster failure was a blockage of a filter where liquid oxygen flowed to the engines. The company said it had made design changes to prevent that from happening again.

The upper stage continued upward for seven minutes after stage separation. This was itself an achievement because the company completed a step called hot-staging, during which the upper-stage engines ignite before the stage detaches from the Super Heavy booster.

Because the spacecraft was empty, extra liquid oxygen was loaded to simulate the weight of a future payload it could carry to orbit. But when the extra oxygen was dumped, a fire started, disrupting communication between the spacecraft’s flight computers. The computers shut down the engines and then set off the flight termination system, destroying the spacecraft.

The upper Starship stage reached an altitude of about 90 miles and a speed of about 15,000 miles per hour. For a spacecraft to reach orbit, it needs to accelerate to about 17,000 miles per hour.

Frost lines have appeared on Starship and the Super Heavy booster as methane and liquid oxygen flow into the rocket’s tanks.

It’s sunrise in Cameron County, Texas, but weather reports show cloudy conditions persist. We’ll see if weather is going to keep Starship on the beach, but SpaceX says it has started loading propellants into the rocket.

Launch time is now 9:25 a.m. Eastern. SpaceX says winds are still a concern that could cause a liftoff to be called off, but it will go ahead with loading of propellants in the rocket.

SpaceX pushed the launch time back a little more, to 9:10 a.m. Eastern. They have until 9:50 to try today.

SpaceX has just announced the new target launch time is 9:02 a.m. Eastern, and the company said on X that it is clearing some boats from a safety zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Cameras from a number of space enthusiast websites like NASASpaceflight that are pointing at the rocket show there is still no frost on its side, so the loading of ultracold methane and liquid oxygen propellants has not yet begun.

As SpaceX prepares for its third flight of Starship, other space efforts have experienced difficulties this week. On Wednesday, Kairos, a rocket from a Japanese startup called Space One, exploded moments into its first launch attempt. And Xinhua, a Chinese state news agency, said on Thursday that two Chinese satellites were lost after a rocket failed to reach the planned orbit.

In a posting on the social media site X, SpaceX says that it is aiming for launch at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time, or 30 minutes into the 110-minute launch window. There is a 70 percent chance of favorable weather. There have been concerns of high winds, especially at higher altitudes.

What is Starship?

For Elon Musk, Starship is really a Mars ship. He envisions a fleet of Starships carrying settlers to the red planet in the coming years.

And for that eventual purpose, Starship, under development by Mr. Musk’s SpaceX rocket company , has to be big. Stacked on top of what SpaceX calls a Super Heavy booster, the Starship rocket system will be, by pretty much every measure, the biggest and most powerful ever.

It is the tallest rocket ever built — 397 feet tall, or about 90 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty including the pedestal.

And it has the most engines ever in a rocket booster: The Super Heavy has 33 of SpaceX’s powerful Raptor engines sticking out of its bottom. As those engines lift Starship off the launchpad in South Texas, they will generate 16 million pounds of thrust at full throttle.

NASA’s new Space Launch System rocket , which made its first flight in November 2022, holds the current record for the maximum thrust of a rocket: 8.8 million pounds. The maximum thrust of the Saturn V rocket that took NASA astronauts to the moon during the Apollo program was relatively paltry: 7.6 million pounds.

An even more transformative feature of Starship is that it is designed to be entirely reusable. The Super Heavy booster is to land much like those for SpaceX’s smaller Falcon 9 rockets, and Starship will be able to return from space belly-flopping through the atmosphere like a sky diver before pivoting to a vertical position for landing.

That means all of the really expensive pieces — like the 33 Raptor engines in the Super Heavy booster and six additional Raptors in Starship itself — will be used over and over instead of thrown away into the ocean after one flight.

That has the potential to cut the cost of sending payloads into orbit — to less than $10 million to take 100 tons to space, Mr. Musk has predicted.

Starship and Super Heavy are shiny because SpaceX made them out of stainless steel, which is cheaper than using other materials like carbon composites. But one side of Starship is coated in black tiles to protect the spacecraft from the extreme heat that it will encounter if it gets far enough in its flight to re-enter the atmosphere.

Here is what to know about Thursday’s SpaceX test flight.

The third try was closer to the charm for Elon Musk and SpaceX, as the company’s flight test of the mammoth Starship rocket launched on Thursday and traveled almost halfway around the Earth before it was lost as it re-entered the atmosphere.

The flight achieved some key milestones in the development of the vehicle, which could alter the future of space transportation and help NASA return astronauts to the moon.

This particular flight did not, by design, make it all the way around the Earth. At 9:25 a.m. Eastern time, Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever to fly, lifted off from the coast of South Texas. About 45 minutes later it started its re-entry, but communications were lost a few minutes after that. The company said the rocket was lost before attempting to splash down in the Indian Ocean, a sign that more work needs to be completed on the vehicle.

That reusability gives SpaceX the potential to drive down the cost of lofting satellites and space telescopes, as well as people and the things they need to live in space.

Here’s what else to know:

Thursday’s flight demonstrated new capabilities for Starship. In addition to reaching orbital speeds, the Starship vehicle opened and closed its payload door and managed to move several tons of liquid oxygen between two tanks within the rocket, a key test needed for future missions.

The Starship system consists of two stages — the Super Heavy rocket booster and the upper-stage spacecraft, which is also called Starship. The company intends both to be fully reusable in the future. Read more about Starship .

Thursday’s launch was the third of Starship. Here’s a recap of what happened last time .

Are Nvidia, Tesla Employee Stock Grants Allowing Staff To Buy Yachts — Former AI Chief Says 'Most People Don't HODL'

Andrej Karpathy , former director of AI at EV giant Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), said on Sunday that a few Tesla employees might be on a yacht right now, thanks to their stock grants , like Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) employees.

What Happened: Karpathy said that the company has had “very few” true believers of the company working there and taking all employee stock options over a decade. These people did not sell the stock immediately and could now be on a yacht, Karpathy said, while adding that most of these long-term holders, however, are likely awaiting for Tesla to achieve fully autonomous driving with its FSD software before they sell at a premium.

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However, many employees do sell, Karpathy acknowledged. “Most people don't HODL…,” Karpathy said. He was responding to Openfounder co-founder JD Ross who reminisced about his roommate who went on to join Nvidia after graduating in 2013. “I wonder which yacht he lives on now,” Ross wrote.

Nvidia Vs. Tesla Growth: Both Nvidia and Tesla provide their employees with stock grants. While Nvidia shares have risen about 1879% over the past five years and over 100,000% since listing in 1999, Tesla shares have jumped 12,679% since listing in 2010. Compared to Nvidia, Tesla’s is a significantly smaller jump. However, Tesla has also had fewer years on the exchange as a listed, public company.

Why It Matters: Musk has often hailed stock grants at Tesla. In March 2022, the company CEO said in an X post that Tesla has made several workers millionaires with stock grants. He attributed it as among the reasons for the company not having witnessed unionization thus far.

However, in December, Bloomberg reported that the EV giant did not offer any merit-based equity awards in 2023 to some of its salaried employees. Tesla employees usually get merit-based stock grants in addition to their existing equity during performance reviews. Whether this is a long-term shift in Tesla’s compensation plan is unknown, the report said.

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