Earlier this week, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos got into a public disagreement on X, the platform Musk owns, over comments Bezos allegedly made about President-elect Donald Trump. Although Bezos denies saying this.
“I just read tonight at Mar-a-Lago that Jeff Bezos was telling everyone that @realDonaldTrump is going to lose for sure, so they should sell all their Tesla and SpaceX stocks,” Musk wrote Thursday in a post that has been viewed more than 44 million times (according to -X) at the time of writing.
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Bezos responded to the post, saying “No. 100% not true” to which Musk responded, “Well, I stand corrected.”
No. 100% not true.
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) November 21, 2024
Musk and Bezos are two of the most powerful people in the world, with a combined net worth of over half a trillion dollars. Bezos is the second richest person in the world with a net worth of $226 billion while Musk takes the top spot with a net worth of $331 billion.
But that didn’t stop the two tech titans from talking it out on social media.
Musk (left) and Bezos (right). Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI, MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
Musk heads the space exploration company SpaceX and Bezos is the head of rival company Blue Origin. Since 2004, the two companies have been embroiled in patent battles, disputes over talent, and disputes over who developed the space project first.
For example, Bezos hid Musk’s desire to land on Mars in a private speech in 2019, while Musk called him a copycat the same year for his Internet satellite plans.
Musk said in a 2021 interview with the Financial Times that Bezos “takes himself too seriously” and “doesn’t seem willing to spend mental energy going into engineering details.”
Related: Elon Musk Makes Fun of Bezos on Twitter, Purposely Mispronounces His Name
Musk also publicly criticized Bezos’ project “The Rings of Power,” a Lord of the Rings adaptation set for release in 2022, tweeting “Tolkien is turning in his grave.”
While the dynamic between Musk and Bezos may be changing after Trump’s win, this latest exchange proves that the dynamic between two of the world’s richest people remains at odds.
Trump recently appointed Musk the co-head of the new Department of Government Operations to help shrink the US government.
