Richard Branson promises to ‘UPSTAGE’ Elon Musk after admitting he’s ‘jealous’ of Falcon Heavy launch

BRIT billionaire Richard Branson says he wants to "upstage" Elon Musk after the SpaceX boss's spectacular Falcon Heavy rocket launch last week.

Branson also admitted he was "jealous" of Musk's successful launch, and wants to advance the space-faring efforts of his own firm, Virgin Galactic.

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Elon Musk's SpaceX launched the £60m Falcon Heavy rocket last week"I was a little bit jealous," Branson told

Branson, whose Virgin Galactic is fervently trying to beat Musk and co. to send tourists into space, proclaimed that SpaceX's Falcon Heavy launch "did fantastic."

But he said it's left him "thinking about what we can do to upstage that one."

SpaceX's latest rocket blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center last week. The £60m Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket in use today.

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On board the rocket is Musk's cherry red Tesla roadster, which is heading for a solar orbit that will reach all the way to Mars.

Back on earth, Sir Richard was seemingly left in awe by the entire spectacle.

But, maybe what the entrepreneur really needs is a crash course in social media marketing.

Lesson one: drive up interest for your products on Twitter and Instagram.

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Musk is known to tease launches for his various firms (Tesla, SpaceX, and the Boring Company) months in advance on Twitter and Instagram, where he's unveiled everything from space suits to the commuter tunnels Boring is building in LA.

Lesson two: make some funky merchandise.

Musk recently sold out of Boring Company flamethrowers, all 20,000 of them, raising $10m in the process.

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Lesson three: stream everything.

Sir Richard, and everyone else, got to watch the Falcon Heavy launch, courtesy of a YouTube livestream (which became the second-biggest in the platform's history with 2.3m concurrent viewers).

But Musk isn't the only intrepid billionaire vying to lead the new space race. Sir Richard is also facing stiff competition from Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, who beat Musk to landing a reusable rocket through his own firm Blue Origin.

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