SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has weighed in on his billionaire space rival Jeff Bezos's launch of his Blue Origin rocket, after its inaugural flight was delayed earlier this week. The launch of the New Glenn rocket from Florida this morning marked the company's first attempt to challenge SpaceX's dominance in the space industry. Musk said to Bezos on social media platform X: 'Congratulations on reaching orbit on the first attempt!' The towering 30-storey rocket, designed with a reusable first stage, took off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station shortly after 1:35 a.m. ET, following multiple delays earlier in the week. The pair have long had a space race rivalry, which Musk appears to be winning. The BBC's Science Correspondent Pallab Ghosh wrote: 'SpaceX’s approach to innovation has been quite different to Nasa’s or any private sector firm. 'The norm had been to develop carefully and minimise the risks of a failure when building systems. SpaceX on the other hand have innovated quickly, failed quickly and learned quickly. 'Explosions were the norm when developing its Falcon and Starship rocket systems, but each test flight has gone better than the previous one and the pace with which it has been developing new lower cost ways of getting to space, culminating in the catching of Starship’s booster on the launchpad, has been blistering. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk (pictured in 2024) has weighed in on his billionaire space rival Jeff Bezos's launch of his Blue Origin rocket Jeff Bezos' (pictured in front of the New Shepard rocket booster and Crew Capsule mockup) towering 30-story rocket, designed with a reusable first stage, took off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station shortly after 1:35 a.m. ET Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket lifts off from Launch Complex 36 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025 'Jeff Bezos stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021 to focus more on Blue Origin. Bezos’ influence and his appointment of a new head of Blue Origin seems to have shifted the firm’s culture and speeded up the development of New Glenn.' In April 2021, SpaceX beat Blue Origin in a $2.9billion NASA contract to build the lunar lander for its Artemis program. Months later, Blue Origin unsuccessfully tried suing NASA and SpaceX to get the tender nullified. But two years later NASA awarded Blue Origin a $3.4billion contract to develop a competing Moon lander. NASA said following the announcement: 'Adding another human landing system partner to NASA's Artemis program will increase competition, reduce costs to taxpayers, support a regular cadence of lunar landings, further invest in the lunar economy, and help NASA achieve its goals on and around the Moon in preparation for future astronaut missions to Mars.' Despite their differences, Musk and Bezos have both become staunch supporters of president-elect Donald Trump. The pair are expected to be sat with fellow tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg at Trump's inauguration on January 20. The New Glenn launch, which had been previously scrubbed on Monday due to ice buildup on a propellant line, went smoothly this time despite weather challenges and a brief countdown halt caused by a boat straying into a restricted zone. The towering 30-story rocket, designed with a reusable first stage, took off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station shortly after 1:35 a.m. ET, following multiple delays earlier in the week A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 36 from the Kennedy Space Center on its maiden flight, at Cape Canaveral, Florida on January 16, 202 The highly anticipated flight marks the company's first attempt to challenge SpaceX 's dominance in the space industry