A Rare Photo Shows Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos Having Dinner 17 Years Ago, Before Their Longstanding Feud Ignited

A rare photo has surfaced of a fateful meeting between Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk 17 years ago.

The photo - which was tweeted by Trung Phan, a writer for business newsletter The Hustle - shows Musk and Bezos smiling while seated together in a restaurant. According to Phan, it was taken in 2004, just as Musk's and Bezos' respective space ambitions were starting to heat up.

1/ In 2004, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos met for a meal to discuss space.

It was one of their few in-person interactions.

The conversation they had perfectly captures the different approaches they've taken to space exploration.

Here's the story pic.twitter.com/g8hAsEj3d4

— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) March 1, 2021

Musk responded to the photo, tweeting: "Wow, hard to believe that was 17 years ago!"

The 2004 meeting is widely believed to be the beginning of a long-standing rivalry between the two moguls and their competing rocket companies, SpaceX and Blue Origin. While Bezos hasn't publicly discussed the meal, Musk described their meeting to author Christian Davenport for his book, "The Space Barons." Musk said that Bezos was "barking up the wrong tree" about rockets and that SpaceX had already tried several of the ideas Bezos was proposing, calling them "dumb."

Related: Elon Musk Just Trolled Jeff Bezos on Twitter and It Could Reignite a Years-Old Feud Between the Billionaires

"I actually did my best to give good advice, which he largely ignored," Musk said.

Since then, Bezos has made veiled critiques of Musk's main goal of sending humans to Mars, while Musk has taken jabs at some of Amazon's business ventures, calling Bezos a "copycat" on more than one occasion. SpaceX and Blue Origin have also competed over talent and patents, as well as NASA contracts and access to launch pads.

And for the past several months, Bezos and Musk have also been jockeying for the title of the richest person in the world. Bezos is currently in the No. 1 spot due to his $181 billion fortune, while Musk is No. 2 with a net worth of $170 billion.