Most people don't really care about COVID anymore. That's good — and bad.

Doctors say a decrease in masking and vaccinations could be contributing to a summer surge of COVID cases.

The Washington Post

• The general public's attitude toward COVID is more relaxed than ever, even amid a summer surge.
• Doctors say relaxed COVID precautions are to be expected and are not necessarily a bad thing.
• But the risk of long COVID provides a compelling argument to stay vigilant, medical professionals said.

Gone are the days of scrubbing surfaces, sudden school closures, and social distancing.

Where a positive COVID-19 test once wrought panicked contract tracing and guaranteed two weeks of isolation, these days, a diagnosis sparks relatively little worry for most people.

Even amid a summer spike in cases — everyone from President Joe Biden to the 2024 Summer Olympians seems to be battling the virus — the general public's attitude toward the pandemic that upended our lives more than four years ago is more relaxed than ever.

The federal public health emergency for COVID expired in May 2023, officially ending the crisis, at least in name, more than three years after it was first declared. Since then, thanks to high infection and immunization rates, the country has continued climbing toward the herd immunity doctors so desperately sought in the early days of the pandemic, four medical professionals told Business Insider.

"The risk perception and anxiety around acute COVID infection has definitely lessened," said Dr. Anita Chopra, an internist at the University of Washington medical system. "People are interacting and mingling more like in pre-pandemic times."

Healthcare professionals told BI that the public's more relaxed attitude toward COVID is ultimately a good thing. A return to normality was the goal, after all.

But COVID is still very present and very much a potential threat, especially for the immunocompromised and those unlucky enough to develop long COVID symptoms — up to 10% of patients, according to some doctor estimates. Meanwhile, relaxed masking and declining vaccination rates, while to be expected at this point, could be linked to the rising case numbers doctors are seeing in clinics around the country, medical professionals told BI.

"We need to acknowledge that we're in a very different place now than we were at the height of the pandemic," said Dr. Eric Chow, chief of communicable disease epidemiology and immunizations at Public Health Seattle and King County. "But so long as COVID-19 continues to circulate, there are health implications to getting infected."

Evolving behaviors and beliefs

Many of the early-day pandemic precautions have all but disappeared in 2024. Chief among them, according to doctors, are masking, isolations, and vaccinations.

Soon after the pandemic emerged, medical professionals emphasized masking as a key way to slow the spread of the virus.

The face coverings quickly became a contentious cultural topic and among the most politicized aspects of COVID. But these days, even many who once championed masks have ditched the deterrent entirely. An August 2023 Yahoo News/YouGov poll of 1,665 US adults found that 12% of respondents said they were masking — down from 60% in January 2022. And doctors told BI that they've seen a steady decrease in masking since then.

"I think the public has appropriately adjusted their attitudes to what they hear in the news and what they see around them," said Dr. Edward Jones-Lopez, infectious disease specialist with Keck Medicine at the University of Southern California.

More worrying to medical professionals is the decline in vaccinations.

While early immunization rates helped bolster immunity, vaccination uptake has been on the decline in recent years, and fewer and fewer people are keeping up to date with their booster shots, a preventive step the CDC recommends in its COVID guidelines.

Most medical professionals also recommend a yearly COVID-19 vaccine. There's a new shot coming out in September. But Chow, who previously worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the height of the pandemic, said most people aren't aware of the recommended vaccine schedule — a challenge that is indicative of a larger problem doctors are trying to navigate in this new COVID age.

"People are much more fatigued by COVID messaging," he said. "We're trying to right-size the appropriate message to make sure people continue to acknowledge the health impacts of COVID."

The long COVID scare

Relaxed attitudes are not necessarily a bad thing, according to doctors.

"I think it's to be expected as we learn more about the virus over these four years and as we've developed these other COVID countermeasures to address infection," said Dr. Jessica Bender, a primary care doctor at Harbor View Medical in Seattle and the co-director at the university's long COVID clinic.

On the one hand, people are generally not getting as sick as they once did when ill with COVID, medical professionals told BI. On the other hand, this summer seems to have brought yet another COVID surge with a spike in cases.

People don't typically equate respiratory illnesses with the warmer months, but an increase in summer socializing combined with the general decrease in preventive measures is likely fueling the uptick, Bender said.

For an unlucky subset of patients, a COVID diagnosis — even in this new relaxed era — could mean long-term challenges.

Doctors define long COVID as any infection related to the virus that is present for at least three months, said Chopra, who treats patients at the UW long COVID clinic. The often debilitating condition is indiscriminate in who it affects. Up to 10% of all people who get COVID are susceptible, according to Chopra, and patients of all ages, genders, races, and vaccination statuses can present with long COVID.

Long COVID can affect patients of any age, race, or vaccination status.

ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images

Even as the country relaxes its COVID response, doctors said they are still seeing many new patients presenting with long COVID each day. The condition has at least 200 known signs and symptoms that range from shortness of breath to chronic fatigue and brain fog.

Doctors told BI they'd treated several patients who have been forced to stop working or rendered unable to participate in any physical activity because of a long COVID diagnosis. A 2023 study published in the National Library of Medicine explored a possible link between long COVID and the risk of suicide because of the condition's tendency to inflict depression, anxiety, posttraumatic symptoms, sleep disturbances, fatigue, and cognitive deficits.

Medical professionals are doing their best to understand long COVID, but admit that there's still much to learn. According to the CDC, about 17 million people reported having long-term COVID-19 in March 2024.

For these people, the pandemic is still very real.

"When I treat people with long COVID, they are always masked," Chopra said.

The future of COVID

As doctors look to the future of COVID, little is for sure.

"We always say the one thing that is predictable about COVID is its unpredictability," Chow said.

But medical professionals told BI they are optimistic that even as the virus continues to evolve, the next few years will continue to look like the past year, with small seasonal surges and hopefully less intense illness.

While lax attitudes may be a welcome sign of a cautious new normal, doctors said it's important to remember the lessons we've collectively learned from COVID. The precautions that proved useful against the virus protect people from other illnesses, too.

Just because the world has adapted to COVID-19, medical professionals say, doesn't mean we should drop the hygiene, ventilation, and masking lessons learned along the way.

"We've learned so much about how we can protect ourselves," Chow said. "It's hard to see people leave some of those precautions behind."

Doctors recommend people gauge their individual risk, as well as the risk of those close to them when considering which precautions to take in this new COVID age. Most medical professionals still recommend masking, testing, and visiting a doctor after testing positive.

"We're aiming to get to a state where COVID is not a threat to our healthcare system," Bender said. "And not a threat to our lives and livelihoods.

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The history of Virgin Atlantic: How a record executive took on the airline establishment and won.

Sir Richard Branson, pictured on air stairs drinking from a bottle of champagne ahead of the inaugural flight of Virgin Atlantic Airways in 1984.

Terry Disney/Getty Images

• Virgin Records founder Sir Richard Branson started Virgin Atlantic Airways in 1984.
• The airline survived growing pains and financial strife to become a major transatlantic carrier.
• Virgin Atlantic celebrated the 40th anniversary of its maiden flight in June.

In June 2024, Virgin Atlantic Airways celebrated the 40th anniversary of its first flight.

Since its founding in 1984, the Richard Branson-led carrier has weathered its fair share of growing pains, financial challenges, and underhanded tactics from its biggest rivals to become one of the industry's most innovative and visible airlines.

Today, as one of Great Britain's two flag carriers, along with British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and its instantly recognizable livery are mainstays at major airports around the world.

"Richard Branson has said what sets this company apart is an immense and obsessed focus on making our customers smile and having the best team in the sky," Virgin Atlantic CEO Shai Weiss told Business Insider in an interview. "Today, we are more mature (as a company) and continue to lead from the front."

Here's a closer look at the 40-year history of Virgin Atlantic Airways.

Before entering the airline industry, Sir Richard made his money in the record business.

Sir Richard Branson, seen here standing inside his Virgin Mega Store in London in 1979.

Mirrorpix/Getty Images

Branson established the Virgin brand in 1970 as a discount mail-order record distributor. Within its first decade, the Virgin Group had evolved into a chain of retail locations, a recording studio, and a record label. Virgin Records, which helped bankroll Virgin Atlantic during the airline's nascent years, would go on to sign iconic acts such as the Rolling Stones, Janet Jackson, and eventually the Spice Girls.

Branson's first foray into the airline business was an impromptu charter flight in the British Virgin Islands in 1978.

Necker Island is Branson's private island and home in the British Virgin Islands.

Virgin Limited Edition

According to Branson, he was bumped from a flight to the British Virgin Islands in 1978, the same year he purchased Necker Island.

"I figured there was a whole plane load of people who wanted to get somewhere — all I needed was the plane," Branson said in a blog post last year. "I went to the back of the airport, hired a plane, and found a blackboard. As a joke, I wrote 'Virgin Airways: $39 single flight' and filled up the flight with all the bumped passengers."

The bankruptcy and liquidation of Laker Airways in 1982 gave Branson the opportunity to officially enter the airline industry.

A Laker Airways DC-10 pictured flying over the Severn estuary in 1973.

Mirrorpix/Getty Images

Laker Airways and its McDonnell Douglas DC-10 Skytrains pioneered low-cost, long-haul flights across the Atlantic during the late 1970s but collapsed in early 1982 under the weight of $300 million in debts.

In the wake of Laker's collapse, the airline's former chief pilot, Capt. Alan Hellary and a young American lawyer named Randolph Fields proposed a new, all-business class carrier called British Atlantic Airways.

According to Branson's 1998 autobiography "Losing My Virginity," Fields reached out in February of 1984 with an opportunity to become an investor in British Atlantic.

Before signing on to the new airline, Branson sought advice from Laker Airways founder Sir Freddie Laker.

Sir Freddie Laker (Left) is pictured with Sir Richard Branson holding a bottle of Champagne in 1992, celebrating the christening of a Boeing 747 named "Spirit of Sir Freddie" in Laker's honor.

Neil Munns/PA Images/Getty Images

Over the course of a lunch meeting on Branson's houseboat in London, Laker advised the music industry magnate to avoid going with a single-cabin model, whether that be an all-business or a no-frills, all-economy class offering, Branson wrote.

It's advice that Branson took to heart as Virgin Atlantic would go on to pioneer the three-class model, with Business, Premium Economy, and Economy.

According to Branson, Sir Freddie offered another piece of advice that would become handy in the future.

"British Airways will try to wipe you off the map like they did to me. Three words of wisdom: sue the bastards!" Laker told him.

In 1992, Virgin Atlantic christened one of its first Boeing 747s, "Spirit of Sir Freddie," in honor of Laker.

Less than a month after being approached to become an investor, Branson agreed to join the project with the caveat that the airline be renamed Virgin Atlantic Airways.

Capt. Alan Hellary, Richard Branson, and Randolph Fields pictured announcing the creation of Virgin Atlantic in 1984.

Express/Getty Images

On February 29, 1984, Branson, Hellary, and Fields held a press conference announcing the launch of a newly renamed Virgin Atlantic Airways.

"The first arrangement I made with Randolph (Fields) was that we would have an equal partnership," Branson wrote in his autobiography. "I would invest the funds; he would run the airline."

In addition to Hellary, Fields also recruited key members of Laker Airways' engineering and operations teams to help run the airline.

Unfortunately, the Fields-Branson partnership would fall apart within weeks.

"The first casualty of Virgin Atlantic Airways was my relationship with Randolph Fields," Branson wrote in "Losing My Virginity."

The two could not agree on how to run the business, and Fields was frozen out of the airline's day-to-day operations. This disagreement led to a £1 million buyout offer from Branson before the airline's first flight, which Fields turned down. Fields would go on to accept an unspecified buyout at a later date.

Branson and company got to work with the goal of getting the airline in the air by June of 1984 to take advantage of the summer travel season.

Branson, pictured on board his houseboart weeks before Virgin Atlantic's maiden flights with a Boeing 747 model.

Tom Stoddart/Getty Images

The newly minted airline leased a secondhand 747-200 from Boeing for its maiden flight.

Virgin Atlantic's first plane registration (G-VIRG) was originally delivered to Aerolineas Argentina in 1976 before returning to Boeing in 1982.

Christened the Maiden Voyager, the aircraft remained in the Virgin Atlantic fleet until the early 2000s before spending its final years with Nigeria's Kabo Air. It was scrapped in 2011.

In addition to leasing a plane, the Virgin Atlantic team set up a ticket distribution system and arranged for a rival carrier, British Caledonian, to handle maintenance for the aircraft.

Virgin Atlantic was finally ready for its maiden flight.

Sir Richard Branson posing in front of Virgin Atlantic's first Boeing 747 before the airline's inaugural flight in 1984.

Mirrorpix/Getty Images

On June 22, 1984, Virgin Atlantic Airways Flight VS1 departed from London-Gatwick bound for Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. The jumbo jet, delivered to London just days earlier, lifted off with Branson's friends and family, Virgin Group employees, celebrities, media, and 70 cases of Champagne.

Branson called Virgin Atlantic's maiden flight an eight-hour party.

Branson pictured on board Virgin Atlantic's maiden flight in 1984 sitting beside his wife Joan with their daughter Holly.

Virgin Atlantic Airways

"People danced in the aisles as we played Madonna's "Like A Virgin" and Culture Club and Phil Collins," Branson wrote in his autobiography.

During a period of calm amid the revelry, they showed the movie "Airplane" while flight attendants passed out ice cream bars.

Virgin Atlantic continued to grow over the next few years.

A group of Virgin Atlantic Airways flight attendants from early in the airline's history posing for a photograph in the first-class cabin of a Boeing 747.

Virgin Atlantic Airways

In 1986, Virgin Atlantic expanded to a second route, between London Gatwick and Miami, and added a second plane to the fleet: another 747-200 leased from Boeing.

By 1987, the airline had flown its first million customers across the Atlantic.

In late 1987, British Airways acquired British Caledonian.

A British Airways Airbus A320 parked on the apron at Newcastle Airport in February 1989.

Mirrorpix/Getty Images

This merger, which combined the UK's two largest airlines, helped put the growing Virgin Atlantic squarely in British Airways's crosshairs.

Since air transport treaties between the UK and countries like the US and Japan allowed for only two British carriers in each market, the merger proved to be a blessing in disguise for Virgin Atlantic. With British Caledonian out of the picture, Virgin Atlantic was able to jump in as that second British carrier after British Airways and expand to New York JFK, Tokyo, and Los Angeles.

In 1991, Virgin Atlantic was finally granted clearance to operate from Heathrow Airport, London's primary international gateway.

Branson, pictured on the apron at London Heathrow, welcomed Virgin Atlantic's first flight to the airport in 1991.

Victor Crawshaw /Mirrorpix/Getty Images

Until that year, Virgin Atlantic's operations were based solely out of the smaller London-Gatwick Airport.

"Due to a single short runway and the lack of connecting flights, Gatwick was less profitable, both for cargo and passengers than Heathrow," Branson wrote in his autobiography. "We were struggling to make money."

According to Branson, an identical route from Heathrow would be 15% more profitable than one from Gatwick.

Virgin Atlantic also pioneered some unique service offerings during its early years.

Richard Branson pictured in 1992 on board a Virgin Atlantic 747 receiving a massage from one of the airline's inflight beauty therapists.

Neil Munns - PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images

In 1990, Virgin Atlantic introduced inflight beauty therapists to its aircraft. The staff members, dressed in white, offered passengers free manicures as well as head, shoulder, and neck massages. The airline discontinued the service in 2008, but massages remain available to customers in its airport lounges.

Virgin Atlantic was the first airline to offer a premium economy cabin.

The modern version of Virgin Atlantic's premium economy cabin launched in 1992.

Virgin Atlantic Airways

In March 1992, Virgin Atlantic launched an enhanced economy product with larger seats and more legroom called Mid Class, which would later be rebranded Premium class. It was the first international premium economy product in the world with Taiwan's EVA Air launching a similar offering later that year.

A decade later, Virgin Atlantic debuted its innovative business-class suite.

Virgin Atlantic Upper-Class Suites on board an Airbus A340-600.

Hollis Johnson

The lie-flat beds arranged in a reverse herringbone pattern helped set the airline apart upon its debut in 2003.

In early 1991, a TV special about the competition between British Airways and Virgin Atlantic kicked open what would become the 'Dirty Tricks' campaign.

A British Airways Boeing 747-400 painted in the airline's retro livery from the late 1980s and 1990s.

Benthemouse / Shutterstock.com

The Independent reported that the campaign against Virgin Atlantic and rival airlines started with a closed-door meeting among British Airways leaders at Gatwick Airport in the summer of 1990.

"[British Airways] went to extraordinary lengths to put us out of business," Branson told NPR's "How I Built This" podcast in 2017. "They had a team of people illegally accessing our computer information and ringing up our passengers and pretending that they were from Virgin, telling them that flights were canceled and switching them to BA."

According to Branson, the British Airways team also went through his garbage and the garbage from Virgin Atlantic's airport lounges in search of incriminating items such as drug paraphernalia.

British Airways denied Branson's claims and insisted that this was simply an attempt to generate publicity.

Branson turned to his mentor, Sir Freddie Laker, for advice.

British airline entrepreneur Freddie Laker (1922 - 2006), relaxed on one of his Laker Airways planes in 1978.

John Williams/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

"Sir Freddie Laker repeated his advice (from our lunch meeting in 1984) to sue the bastards," Branson wrote.

In 1992, Branson sued British Airways for libel and won. he High Court in London in London rendered a judgment in favor of Branson and his airline totaling £610,000 or $915,000 in damages and another £3 million or $4.5 million for legal costs.

Branson distributed the judgment proceeds to Virgin Atlantic employees as a Christmas bonus to help make amends for the pay cuts that were instituted due to the financial pressure created by BA's campaign.

Despite the court judgment, the damage from the campaign's financial pressure was already done.

Branson pictured in 1992 standing next to Thorn EMI Chairman Sir Colin Southgate who is spraying champagne after acquiring Virgin Music.

Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images

In 1992, Branson was forced to sell Virgin Music Group, including Virgin Records, for $1 billion to Thorn EMI to help generate funds to bankroll the airline.

In a 2013 interview, Branson compared the pain of selling his beloved record label to selling one's child.

Until the mid-90s, Virgin Atlantic's fleet consisted exclusively of older, secondhand Boeing 747-100/200s.

An Airbus A340-300, similar to ones owned by Virgin Atlantic, on final approach for landing in 1995.

SSPL/Getty Images

That changed with the A340-300, which remained a mainstay of the Virgin Atlantic fleet until the early 2010s.

New Boeing 747-400s followed, joining the Virgin Atlantic fleet in 1994.

Virgin Atlantic Airways 747.

Virgin Atlantic Airways

With the arrival of the Airbus A340 in the fleet, Virgin Atlantic's Boeing 747 fleet became increasingly focused on servicing the airline's leisure destinations.

Virgin Atlantic retired its last Boeing 747-400 in 2020.

In 2002, the A340-600 joined the Virgin Atlantic fleet.

An Airbus A340-600 operated by Virgin Atlantic.

Stefan Irvine/LightRocket/Getty Images

The A340-600, a more powerful, stretched variant of the A340-300, helped replace the aging 747-200s the airline relied upon during its early years.

At its release, the A340-600 was the longest airliner in the world. It was superseded in 2012 when Boeing introduced the 747-8.

Virgin Atlantic and many of its other operators struggled to make the economics of the aircraft work. As a result, the A340-600 would leave the fleet by the late 2010s.

In the early 2010s, the A340-300 was gradually replaced by the Airbus A330-300.

A fleet of Virgin Atlantic A330-300s parked at the gate.

Bradley Caslin/Shutterstock

The twin-engined A330-300s offered improved economics over the pricier-to-operate four-engine A340s.

Branson sold a 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic to Singapore Airlines in late 1999.

Flight Attendants for Virgin Atlantic (R) and Singapore Airlines pictured in 1999 at a press conference in London announcing SIA's acquisition of a 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic.

Michael Stephens - PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images

The Singaporean carrier paid $975 million for the equity stake in Virgin Atlantic.

And in December 2012, Delta Air Lines acquired Singapore's 49% equity stake in Virgin Atlantic.

Then Delta CEO Richard Anderson pictured in 2012 onstage at a news conference in New York announcing the purchase of a 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic.

Brendan McDermid/Reuters

Delta paid $360 million for its share in the British airline. The two carriers established a joint venture partnership in 2014 that allowed them to sell tickets on board each other's flights. More than 40 million passengers have traveled across the Atlantic over the first decade of the joint venture.

Unfortunately, not all of Virgin Atlantic's endeavors have been as successful as its Delta joint venture.

Sir Richard Branson pictured in 2013 arriving at Edinburgh Airport onboard a Virgin Atlantic Airways Airbus A320 wearing a Harris Tweed Kilt.

Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

In 2013, Virgin Atlantic launched a domestic subsidiary called Virgin Atlantic Little Red. The airline leased a handful of narrowbody Airbus A320s from Aer Lingus to offer domestic service between London-Heathrow and destinations in the UK, such as Manchester and Edinburgh.

Virgin Atlantic shuttered Little Red in 2015 after suffering significant financial losses.

Virgin Atlantic filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy in 2020 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

A Virgin Atlantic Airways Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner.

Virgin Atlantic Airways

The airline lost £858 million in 2020, the highest annual loss in company history. To survive the financial crisis, Virgin Atlantic laid off thousands of employees and shuttered its London-Gatwick operation.

A £400 million cash injection in 2021 from Virgin Group and Delta Air Lines helped the carrier weather the storm and get back on its feet.

Today, Virgin Atlantic remains an underdog fighting its way to the top.

A Virgin Atlantic Airbus A330 pictured landing at JFK International Airport in New York in February 2024.

CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images

The rebellious underdog that challenged the status quo present at the outset of the airline is still there, but it's evolved and matured over the years, CEO Weiss said.

"At the beginning, it was just, let's take on British Airways," Weiss said. "Today, whether it's our partnership with Delta, our leadership in sustainability, or the fact that our customer experience continues to move forward, innovation remains a core part of us, and we are proud to be a challenger. "

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Meet Jade Carey, the gymnast and Olympic gold medalist known for her iconic floor routines and vaults

Jade Carey is returning to the Olympics for a second time, this time in Paris. The gymnast won gold for her floor routine in the last Olympic cycle.

Nick Wosika/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

• Jade Carey, the 24-year-old Olympic gold medalist, has returned for her second Olympics in Paris.
• Carey is best known for her stunning floor routines, and her impressive vaults.
• Carey competes in both collegiate and elite gymnastics, and attends Oregon State University.

Jade Carey is well-versed in the art of the comeback.

Back in 2021, the 24-year-old took home a gold medal for her iconic floor routine at the Tokyo Olympics just 24 hours after a shaky performance in the vault final.

Now, she's returning to the 2024 Paris Olympics following a difficult season in 2023 in which she finished 15th in the all-around at the US Championships.

Carey, who is from Phoenix, Arizona, has followed an unusual career path, participating in both collegiate gymnastics and elite gymnastics — and doing both in an Olympic season.

Carey is unmissable on the mat, but not just because of her bouncy blonde ponytail or 5-foot-2 stature.

Carey, who is from Phoenix, Arizona, is perhaps best known for her breathtaking floor routines, videos of which have gone viral. She also has a signature vault: a tucked Kasamatsu full that was renamed "the Carey" in 2016 in the Junior Olympic code of points.

Carey's early career and road to the Olympics

Jade Carey is the daughter of two gymnasts, and is coached by her father, Brian Carey.

Karen Hickey/ISI Photos/Getty Images

Carey was destined to become a gymnast. Both of her parents, Danielle Mitchell-Greenberg and Brian Carey, are former gymnasts, and they owned a gym in Phoenix while raising Carey.

Carey has been trained and coached by her father since a young age, and he is often seen at her competitions, coaching and supporting her from the sidelines.

Unlike many elite gymnasts, who start professionally as young as 12, Carey didn't make her debut until she was 17 years old in 2017.

From there, she went on to medal multiple times at the US Championships and World Championships, taking home a number of silver and bronze medals in vault and floor. It wasn't long before her skills and work ethic carried her all the way to the Olympic Games by age 20.

In the 2020 Tokyo Olympics — which were held in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic — Carey represented the US as an individual competitor.

The Paris Games in 2024 marks the first time she'll be competing in the Olympics as part of a team alongside Simone Biles, Jordan Chiles, Suni Lee, and Hezly Rivera.

Carey's post-Tokyo career and collegiate gymnastics

Carey is competing in the Paris Olympics alongside teammates Simone Biles, Jordan Chiles, Suni Lee, and Hezly Rivera.

Jamie Squire/Getty Images

After Tokyo, Carey began her studies at Oregon State University, where she is pursuing a degree in Digital Communication Arts. She is also a member of the university's gymnastic team, where her father was hired as an assistant coach in 2023.

Carey was initially supposed to enroll before the Tokyo games, but deferred to focus on her training.

In her collegiate gymnastics career so far, Carey has racked up five NCAA medals — four silvers in all-around, floor, balance beam, and uneven bars, and a bronze in balance beam.

In 2024, Carey performed the unusual feat of competing in both the NCAA and making the Olympic team. Carey has said she felt confident in her abilities and her training, and compelled to do both.

The athlete's net worth is not known; however, Carey's earnings include $37,500 in winnings for her gold medal in Tokyo, and she has worked with major brands like Toyota, juice brand RW Knudsen Family, and Treehut. Carey also has a line of leotards with gymnastics apparel company GK Elite.

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Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are arguing again with their rival rocket companies. It's the latest in a 20-year feud.

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have repeatedly overtaken each other for the title of world's richest man.

Lambert/Ullstein Bild/Getty Images; Alex Wong/Getty Images; Blue Origin; Samantha Lee/Insider

• Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos have been rivals for 20 years. 
• They've sparred over their space ambitions, traded barbs, and swapped places as the world's richest person.
• Here's how their rivalry began and everything that's happened in the years since. 

They're two of the world's richest men, and their rivalry dates back to the early 2000s.

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have sparred for years, often publicly, ever since a reported contentious dinner they had in 2004.

They've argued over their space ambitions at SpaceX and Blue Origin, respectively, as well as their wealth as they repeatedly leapfrogged each other for the title of the world's richest person.

Here's a timeline of their relationship over the years:

Back in the early 2000s, Jeff Bezos wasn't yet the titan he is today.

Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000.

AP Photo/Stevan Morgain

Bezos launched Amazon in 1994, and the company went public in 1997. But Amazon wasn't yet the powerhouse it would become — it was years before the company would launch Prime, start its own streaming service, or create its cloud infrastructure service, Amazon Web Services.

But Bezos had always been interested in space. He told the Miami Herald in 1982, after he graduated high school as valedictorian, that he wanted to create outer space colonies for millions of people.

As a result of that long-held interest in leaving Earth, Bezos in 2000 launched Blue Origin, a startup focused on human spaceflight. 

Elon Musk was already a millionaire several times over, but he hadn't become CEO of Tesla yet.

Peter Thiel, left, and Elon Musk, right, pose for a 1999 story about their company, PayPal.

AP

Around the time Bezos was launching Blue Origin, Musk had already sold Zip2, a startup he launched with his brother, Kimbal, to Compaq for roughly $300 million. Musk was in the process of building PayPal, while would later be sold to eBay for $1.5 billion. 

Musk made about $160 million off the PayPal sale and used that money to launch SpaceX in 2002. 

"In the beginning, I actually wouldn't even let my friends invest because everyone would lose their money," Musk said during an interview at South by Southwest in 2018. "I thought I'd rather lose my own money."

The Musk-Bezos rivalry appears to date back to 2004 when the two CEOs met for dinner.

Musk and Bezos reportedly had a contentious dinner in 2004.

Toshiyuki Aizawa/Reuters

By 2004, both Blue Origin and SpaceX were still in their infancy — neither company had completed any launches yet.

But that didn't stop a rivalry from heating up: When the two met to discuss their respective reusable rocket ambitions it apparently did not go well. 

"I actually did my best to give good advice, which he largely ignored," Musk said after the meeting, according to Christian Davenport's book, "The Space Barons."

In 2021, Trung Phan, then a writer for business newsletter The Hustle, tweeted a photo of Musk and Bezos smiling and sitting in a restaurant. Phan said the photo was from 2004, meaning it may have been taken at that fateful dinner.

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

Fast forward to 2013, and things became contentious again over leasing a NASA launchpad.

Blue Origin unsuccessfully protested SpaceX's bid to get exclusive access to a NASA launchpad.

Michael Seto

In 2013, SpaceX tried to get exclusive use of a NASA launchpad. Blue Origin (along with SpaceX rival United Launch Alliance) filed a formal protest with the government to prevent SpaceX from using the pad — Bezos proposed converting it "into a commercial spaceport available to all launch companies."

Musk called the move a "phony blocking tactic" and took another swipe at Blue Origin.

"[Blue Origin] has not yet succeeded in creating a reliable suborbital spacecraft, despite spending over 10 years in development," Musk told Space News at the time. "If they do somehow show up in the next five years with a vehicle qualified to NASA's human rating standards that can dock with the Space Station, which is what Pad 39A is meant to do, we will gladly accommodate their needs."

"Frankly, I think we are more likely to discover unicorns dancing in the flame duct," he added.

SpaceX eventually won the right to take over the pad. 

In 2014, the two companies got into a patent battle when Blue Origin was granted a patent for drone ships, which are used for landing rocket boosters. SpaceX petitioned to invalidate the patent.

Space X's Falcon 9 aboard its landing platform ship.

BRUCE WEAVER/AFP via Getty Images

Blue Origin's ownership of the patent would mean SpaceX would need to pay to use the technology. SpaceX argued that the science in the patent was "old hat," given that the concept of drone ships has been around for decades.

A judge sided with SpaceX, leading to Blue Origin withdrawing most of the claims in the patent.

The feud isn't just about space ambitions, however. Musk has taken issue with Blue Origin's hiring practices and has taunted Bezos in interviews.

Musk has accused Blue Origin of poaching SpaceX's talent.

John Raoux / AP Images

Musk told one of his biographers, Ashlee Vance, that Blue Origin has repeatedly tried to snag talent away from SpaceX.

"Blue Origin does these surgical strikes on specialized talent offering like double their salaries," Musk said in Vance's 2015 biography. "I think it's unnecessary and a bit rude."

Musk also revealed that SpaceX set up an email filter for the words "blue" and "origin," according to Space News.

When the BBC asked Musk about Bezos in 2016, he responded, "Jeff who?"

In recent years, Musk and Bezos have been more public about their feud, taking their rivalry to Twitter.

Musk and Bezos have taken digs at each other's space companies on Twitter.

Isaiah J. Downing/Reuters

Both execs have seized on opportunities to take shots at the other, most often sniping at each other over reusable rockets. After Blue Origin successfully landed its New Shepard rocket in 2015, Bezos tweeted a video calling it "the rarest of beasts — a used rocket." 

Musk responded, saying SpaceX had performed the feat three years prior. 

—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2015

When SpaceX landed its Falcon 9 spacecraft, Bezos took the opportunity to needle Musk on Twitter.

—Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) December 22, 2015

 

Musk is known for being outspoken on Twitter, and that has included jabs at Bezos.

Elon Musk.

REUTERS/Steve Nesius

Musk has repeatedly and publicly called Bezos a "copycat" — once after Amazon announced its plan to launch internet-beaming satellites, and again when Amazon acquired self-driving-taxi company Zoox.

Musk poked at Bezos in 2019 after the unveiling of Blue Origin's concept for a lunar-landing vehicle, called Blue Moon.

"Putting the word 'Blue' on a ball is questionable branding," he tweeted.

Musk later mocked up a screenshot of a New York Times article that changed the name from "Blue Moon" to "Blue Balls." 

"Oh stop teasing, Jeff 😉," Musk wrote. 

For his part, Bezos has been less overt about his distaste for Musk and SpaceX, but he's made veiled comments about his thoughts on the company's plans.

Bezos has more subtly taken potshots at Musk's space ambitions.

REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

While Bezos has stopped short of calling out Musk directly, he has taken aim at Musk's biggest ambition: colonizing Mars, the main goal of SpaceX. 

Bezos' focus is on getting humans to the moon, and he's described the idea of reaching Mars as "un-motivating."

"Go live on the top of Mount Everest for a year first and see if you like it, because it's a garden paradise compared to Mars," Bezos said in 2019.

During his presentation for Blue Moon, Bezos referenced SpaceX's Mars ambitions once again, titling a slide about Mars "FAR, FAR AWAY."

Things grew more contentious in the spring of 2020, when Blue Origin and SpaceX were both asked to submit designs for lunar landers to NASA for a mission to return humans to the moon by 2024, yet another avenue for the two companies to compete.

A third company, Dynetics, was also in the mix.

REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Along with a third company, Dynetics, Bezos' and Musk's companies were asked to compete for a multibillion-dollar contract with NASA.

All three companies had 10 months to work on their designs for a mission known as Artemis — the mission would be the first time a manned spacecraft has been sent to the moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. 

In July 2020, Musk appeared to make a dig about Bezos' age in an interview with The New York Times.

Today, Bezos is 60 years old, and Musk is 53.

Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

In a wide-ranging Times interview in 2020, Musk, who is seven years younger than Bezos, took the opportunity to comment on Blue Origin, appearing to imply that Jeff Bezos is too old to ever make real progress.  

"The rate of progress is too slow and the amount of years he has left is not enough, but I'm still glad he's doing what he's doing with Blue Origin," Musk said. 

Though the pair's main point of contention appears to be space, Musk has made other pointed remarks about Amazon, including calling the company a monopoly.

Besides Blue Origin, Musk has also critized Amazon, which Bezos also founded.

REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

After Amazon's publishing service refused to publish a book about the coronavirus by writer Alex Berenson, Musk tweeted at Bezos that the situation was "insane" and called for Amazon to be broken up. 

—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 4, 2020

Musk's comments were in response to Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing service refusing to publish Berenson's book titled "Unreported Truths about COVID-19 and Lockdowns." Berenson tweeted a screenshot of an email he says he received from Amazon and said the company "censored" his book. The screenshot appeared to show the publishing division saying the book does not comply with its guidelines.

Amazon later told Business Insider the book was removed in error and would be reinstated.  

It's possible Bezos softened his stance on SpaceX a bit: After the rocket company conducted a test of its Starship spacecraft in December 2020, Bezos publicly complimented the company for its ambitious attempt.

SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, is building and launching Starship prototypes in Boca Chica, Texas.

SpaceX; Mark Brake/Getty Images; Business Insider

SpaceX launched the rocket thousands of feet in the air during during a seven-minute test flight, but the rocket exploded during landing.

Still, the audacious test garnered praise from Musk's space rival, Bezos. 

"Anybody who knows how hard this stuff is is impressed by today's Starship test," Bezos wrote in an Instagram post, accompanied by a low-resolution photo of the rocket. "Big congrats to the whole @SpaceX team. I'm confident they'll be back at it soon."

A post shared by Jeff Bezos (@jeffbezos)

 

But any goodwill Bezos felt toward SpaceX was short-lived. In April 2021, NASA announced that SpaceX was the sole recipient of the contract for landing humans on the moon, worth $2.9 billion. The decision infuriated Blue Origin, which immediately challenged NASA's decision.

NASA said budget and funding limitations meant it couldn't award the contract to both companies.

rew Angerer/Getty Images

Blue Origin filed a 50-page protest with the Government Accountability Office, challenging NASA's decision as "flawed," according to The New York Times. 

NASA had initially said it would award the contract to two companies, but budget concerns and a lack of Congressional funding meant it could only choose SpaceX.

Blue Origin told CNBC that NASA's decision was unfair because it had "moved the goalposts at the last minute" and had negotiated a proposed price with SpaceX, but not with Blue Origin. 

Musk responded to Blue Origin's protests with a thinly veiled jab about male anatomy.

Elon Musk, left, and SpaceX's Starship rocket.

Callaghan O'Hare/Reuters; Yichuan Cao/Getty Images

In response to The New York Times report, Musk tweeted: "Can't get it up (to orbit) lol."

He followed the tweet up with the photoshopped image of Blue Origin's lunar lander that changed the name from "Blue Moon" to "Blue Balls." 

In June 2021, Bezos announced that he'd be making a major commitment to the future of Blue Origin by heading to space aboard one of his own spacecrafts.

Oliver Daemen, Mark Bezos, Jeff Bezos, and Wally Funk flew to the edge of space on July 20, 2021.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

That year, Bezos and his younger brother, Mark, took an 11-minute flight aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft. The flight sent the crew 62 miles above the Earth's surface before landing safely back on the ground. 

"Ever since I was 5 years old, I've dreamed of traveling to space," Bezos said in a video announcing the trip posted on Instagram. "I want to go on this flight because it's a thing I wanted to do all my life. It's an adventure — it's a big deal for me." 

The short trip was Blue Origin's first human flight — SpaceX launched its first human passengers into orbit in May 2020. While it's likely Musk could have gone to space himself by now, the trip would carry more risk for his business dealings, given that he's also the CEO of a public company. Bezos, on the other hand, stepped down as CEO of Amazon two weeks before his visit to space. 

It seems that in Musk's view, Bezos' flight wasn't all that impressive: he poked fun at the fact that the voyage was sub-orbital on Twitter.

Despite the jab, Musk later congratulated Bezos on his successful flight.

Britta Pedersen-Pool/Getty Images

Days before Bezos' trip to space, a Twitter user created a meme that shows Bezos and Musk talking about the flight using a popular meme format where their faces superimposed onto Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala from "Star Wars: Episode II — Attack Of The Clones."

—Charly (@Charly923407591) July 17, 2021

The meme was making fun of the fact that Bezos' flight was to the edge of space rather than blasting him into orbit.

In response, Musk tweeted: "haha." 

Musk eventually congratulated Bezos on a successful flight and has praised Blue Origin's subsequent human spaceflights. 

And after Blue Origin criticized NASA once again for awarding the lucrative contract to SpaceX, Musk mocked Blue Origin's lunar lander.

Jeff Bezos unveiled the "Blue Moon" lunar lander on May 9, 2019.

Jonathan Newton / The Washington Post via Getty Images

Musk tweeted a photo of Blue Origin's lunar lander concept, which showed the middle portion looking deflated. 

"Somehow, this wasn't convincing…" he wrote. 

—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2021

 

In August 2021, Blue Origin filed a lawsuit against NASA over the $2.9 billion contract, which resulted in NASA agreeing to temporarily pause work on the contract.

The court ultimately ruled against Bezos' Blue Origin.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The suit, which was filed in the US Court of Federal Claims, challenges "NASA's unlawful and improper evaluation of proposals" that were submitted for its Human Landing System Program. 

NASA agreed to press pause on the contract until November 1, but by early November, the court ruled against Blue Origin. 

Also in 2021, an Amazon subsidiary filed a protest with the Federal Communications Commission over SpaceX's plans for more Starlink internet satellites, prompting a fiery response from Musk.

Musk responded that Bezos had "a full-time job filing lawsuits against SpaceX."

Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images

Amazon's own satellite company, Project Kuiper, filed the protest letter, telling the FCC that SpaceX broke its rules. The letter is not a lawsuit.

But it sparked a response from Musk, who made a jab at Bezos on Twitter.

"Turns out Besos retired in order to pursue a full-time job filing lawsuits against SpaceX …" Musk tweeted, misspelling Bezos' name. 

—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 27, 2021

 

In recent years, there's been a new component to the Musk-Bezos rivalry: they've been trading places as the world's richest man.

Musk and Bezos have leapfrogged each other multiple times for the title of the world's richest person.

Steve Nesius/Reuters

Bezos had been the richest person in the world since about 2017, but in January 2021, Musk overtook him to claim the top spot after Tesla stock hit all-time highs, nudging Musk's wealth skyward — first, past Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, and then, past Bezos. 

The two moguls swapped spots a few times over the course of the year and for a while, Musk was firmly No. 1.

He used that as another opportunity to poke fun at Bezos, tweeting silver medal emojis at Bezos and taunting the Amazon founder by telling Forbes he planned to send "a giant statue of the digit '2' to Jeffrey B., along with a silver medal."

They've since swapped spots a few more times, but today Musk is on top again, with $241 billion to Bezos' $204 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Musk said in 2021 that Bezos "does take himself a bit too seriously" and that he's intentionally trying to provoke the former Amazon CEO.

Jeff Bezos and his fiancée, Lauren Sanchez. Musk has said Bezos should "spend more time at Blue Origin and less time in the hot tub."

MEGA / Getty Images

"In some ways, I'm trying to goad him into spending more time at Blue Origin so they make more progress," Musk said in an interview with the Financial Times. 

Musk added that while Bezos has a "reasonably good engineering aptitude," he doesn't seem to be spending a lot of "mental energy" getting into the details. 

"As a friend of mine says, he should spend more time at Blue Origin and less time in the hot tub," Musk said.

Bezos has poked at Musk's business ties to China, specifically in the context of his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter.

"Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage over the town square?" Bezos tweeted in April 2022, the month Musk announced his plans to buy the social media site.

Bezos went on to say: "My own answer to this question is probably not. The more likely outcome in this regard is complexity in China for Tesla, rather than censorship at Twitter."

"But we'll see. Musk is extremely good at navigating this kind of complexity," he concluded.

Bezos has said he thinks he and Musk are "very like-minded."

Bezos said Musk "must be a very capable leader" to run SpaceX and Tesla.

Getty Images

"Well, I don't really know Elon very well," Bezos told podcaster Lex Fridman in 2023. "I know his public persona but I also know you can't know anyone by their public persona — it's impossible. You may think you do, but I guarantee you don't." 

He went on to say Musk "must be a very capable leader."

"I agree with you and I think with a lot of these endeavors we're very like-minded," he added. "So I think, I'm not saying we're identical, but we're very like-minded so I love that idea." 

In 2024, their rocket rivalry got new fuel.

Blue Origin expressed concern with the SpaceX Starship's environmental impact in a recent filing to the FAA.

PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

Blue Origin filed concerns to the Federal Aviation Administration about SpaceX's Starship rocket launches, asking that Starship's launch operations be potentially limited due to their having a "greater environmental impact than any other launch system" at Kennedy Space Center.

Musk responded to the complaint on Twitter, writing, "Sue Origin."

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