Tesla Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Elon Musk took to Twitter to call Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos a "copycat" after Bezos announced plans to launch a new satellite-based broadband service.

"In response to an article from the MIT Technology Review that announced Amazon's plans to launch more than 3,000 internet-providing satellites, Musk called Bezos a 'copycat', with the 'cat' portion of the word replaced with a cat emoji," the CNBC reported late on Wednesday.

The Amazon CEO has also hired a SpaceX executive, Rajeev Badyal, to run the Amazon's satellite project after he was fired by Musk.

Bezos wants to launch over 3,200 satellites into the space in order to provide high-speed internet service to underserved communities.

'Project Kuiper' will consist of 784 satellites at an altitude of 367 miles from the earth, 1,296 satellites at 379 miles and 1,156 satellites at 391 miles -- facilitating internet availability to over 95 per cent of the earth's total population.

Moving forward with the initiative, the project has already been filed with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) -- the international organisation in charge of coordinating satellite orbits.

First Published:Apr 12, 2019 5:37 AM IST