Here's a fun billionaire space disagreement for you: Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk both think space is humanity's future. They just can't agree on whether we're supposed to leave Earth or just clean it up from orbit.

Musk has been remarkably consistent about this. He wants humans on Mars, preferably yesterday. The founder of SpaceX doesn't see the red planet as some cool scientific project—it's existential. His thinking goes like this: nuclear war could happen, artificial intelligence might go sideways, and eventually the sun will expand and swallow everything anyway. So humanity needs to be "multiplanetary," or as he bluntly posted on X this month, "become multiplanetary or die. That is the choice we face."

Not exactly subtle.

Bezos, meanwhile, takes a rather different view. Speaking with Andrew Ross Sorkin at the New York Times DealBook Summit last December, the Blue Origin founder pushed back on the whole "Earth as doomed planet" narrative. When Sorkin asked about using space as an "escape hatch from Earth," Bezos was direct: "No. First of all, there is no plan B. We have to save Earth."

He pointed out that robotic probes have already explored our solar system's planets. His conclusion? "This is the good one," he said. "We must save it."

The Mars Timeline Gets Specific

Musk isn't betting humanity's future on Earth's stability, though. Since launching SpaceX in 2002, he's been hammering home the Mars message with increasingly detailed timelines. At SXSW in 2018, he framed it in stark terms: "If there's a third world war, we want to make sure there's enough of a seed of human civilisation somewhere else to bring it back."

By July 2024, Musk told SpaceX staff he expects 1 million people living on Mars by 2044, supported by more than 1,000 Starship launches. Recent posts on X lay out the sequence: Optimus robots go first, then waves of uncrewed cargo missions, and finally—once it's proven safe—humans. His phrasing? "Only way to make life multiplanetary."

The Bezos Alternative

Bezos sees space differently. Rather than treating it as humanity's fallback location, he views it as a way to save Earth by moving the dirty stuff elsewhere. His vision involves relocating heavy industry off-planet while keeping Earth beautiful and residential. "We get the best of both," he told Sorkin, adding, "This planet will be maintained as it should be."

Blue Origin's strategy centers on the Moon first. Lower gravity and accessible ice make it ideal for producing rocket fuel, turning it into a launching pad for deeper solar system exploration. A Blue Origin colleague compared it to JFK Airport in New York—the Moon as a layover point to everywhere else. But Bezos sees it as a "stepping stone to the rest of our solar system."

Civilization Versus Consciousness

So Musk wants to build an entire civilization on Mars as insurance against extinction. Bezos wants to offload industrial pollution into orbit so Earth can stay pristine. "We're not going to destroy this planet," Bezos said, citing humanity's appreciation for nature, beauty, and art. He repeated it for emphasis: "We're not going to destroy this planet."

Musk worries that optimism might be misplaced. "If civilization drops below the tech level needed for interplanetary spaceflight before making life multiplanetary, that could be the end of consciousness," he posted on X this month.

That's the fundamental split. Bezos believes Earth is our permanent home and can be preserved through smart choices. Musk thinks Earth is too fragile to be humanity's only basket for all its eggs. One sees space as Earth's salvation. The other sees it as humanity's escape route.

Both are building rockets to get there. They just haven't agreed on what "there" actually means.