F1: In what capacity will Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos get involved with F1?
–by Mark Cipolloni–
Competitors in the rocket business, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos may soon be competitors in Formula 1.
Musk, of course, owns SpaceX and Bezos is behind the Blue Origin rockets, but why all of a sudden their interest in F1?
Musk was spotted speaking to the Red Bull team boss across the weekend in Miami as he visited the Formula 1 paddock.
“Well, it was great to see him coming to a Formula 1 race and embracing the combustion engine again,” Horner quipped while in conversation with the Financial Times.
“I think he was very impressed with the technology. Obviously, an incredibly bright guy, wanted to know all about the battery and so on, and the power and the output of the car, and then threw down the gauntlet of wanting to race us with one of his electrical vehicles – but then realized that they could only do half the race.”
“Well, he’s a partner with Larry Ellison from Oracle, who is our title partner, and it’s always great to meet people like that,” Horner said. “They’re so involved in the tech and so forward thinking as well.
“Formula 1 has a big regulation change in 2026 where the battery becomes ever more pertinent, and so it would obviously be great to attract talent like that to come and invest in Formula 1.”
Possible Musk Involvement
Founder of SpaceX and Tesla, Musk is so rich he can:
- Buy into a team such as Red Bull
- Buy an entire team
- Buy the entire series
- Invest with Liberty Media to buy out IndyCar
- Invest with Liberty Media to buy some of F1’s most iconic tracks to ensure their future viability
Possible Bezos Involvement
Founder of Amazon, Bezos has sold most of his shares in the online giant but still holds 10% of the shares.
- Buy into an existing team such as McLaren where he hung out much of the Miami weekend
- Buy an entire team
- Acquired in 2014, Twitch is Amazon’s foray into live streaming. Might Bezos what to get the Twitch Platform streaming some F1 content
- Sponsorship – Amazon, Zappos, Ring all could adorn a teams sidepods
- Buy the entire series
- Invest with Liberty Media to buy out IndyCar
- Invest with Liberty Media to buy some of F1’s most iconic tracks to ensure their future viability
All speculation, of course, but it probably was not just a coincidence these business heavyweights were there as F1 fans as were talking to the leaders of F1 both at the track and at the evening dinner parties such as the one held on Carbone Beach.