This week's social media spat between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos is the latest in a row between two of the world's richest men as both look to grow vast business empires in President-elect Trump's second term. This highlighted the intensification of the conflict.
“Tonight at Mar-a-Lago, I learned that Jeff Bezos was telling everyone that @realDonaldTrump should sell all his Tesla and SpaceX stock because he was sure to lose,” Musk said Thursday. , wrote about the same tech mogul on social platform X. He owns it.
“No. Not 100% true,” replied Bezos, who infrequently posts on social media.
Officials say the dynamic between Bezos and Musk could become even more strained. Mr. Musk is particularly beloved by Mr. Trump and is part of a larger shift to the right among Silicon Valley leaders.
“This shows the division between different approaches within the tech community,” Republican strategist Chris Johnson told The Hill. “There are a lot of people like Elon…people who, for better or worse, embrace the right as the party of 'move fast and break things.'”
Mr. Musk and Mr. Bezos clearly have different personalities and political views.
The Tesla founder is a bona fide social media influencer, posting dozens of times a day on his platform, X, and regularly giving interviews with friendly hosts and media personalities. I am complying.
Since founding Amazon and acquiring the Washington Post, Mr. Bezos has kept a low profile, choosing to communicate with investors and employees in polished terms through company representatives.
Musk has been seen as a leading right-wing voice within Silicon Valley in recent years, and this month he assumed a government-adjacent position under the Trump administration, co-leading an effort tasked with cutting government spending and regulation. It happened.
Leaders of major tech companies, including Bezos, have noted Musk's growing presence in Trump's orbit.
Many of these Silicon Valley leaders, reacting to the sweeping changes to the economy promised by President Trump, made a series of calls to the then-Republican candidate in the days before the election to strengthen ties with the incoming administration. I tried.
Observers say Musk and Bezos' social media spat this week shows that their alliance, combined with the success of their technology ventures, is attracting Bezos' attention. .
“He's in a strange position now that the Democratic Party is out of power, given his political leanings, his political ties to D.C., and his relationships with emerging technology companies that have embraced the Republican Party,” Johnson said of Bezos. I think so.''
Representatives for Bezos and Musk declined to comment.
Bezos has been under attack for years from Trump and the right more generally.
Bezos owns the Washington Post, which made a name for itself during Trump's first term by aggressively covering the former president, and has regularly been scorned by conservative critics.
But there are signs of change at the Post, which shocked political and media circles earlier this month by not endorsing presidential candidates.
Mr. Bezos personally decided to rescind an editorial written in support of Vice President Harris, raising concerns that the billionaire was trying to appease Mr. Trump.
In an op-ed defending the move, Bezos dismissed the idea that he was trying to curry favor with Trump or help Trump's businesses.
“You can view my wealth and business interests as a bulwark against intimidation, or you can view them as a web of competing interests,” Bezos wrote. “Only my own principles can tip the balance from one side to the other.”
Johnson said his recent social media attacks on billionaire Musk and any future backlash against the eccentric conservative could catch Trump's attention and mend relations with the president-elect. He suggested that there was.
“It helps him [Bezos] “At the end of the day, Trump likes people who fight, people who believe in him and people who embrace conflict as a way to solve problems and move forward.”
This is not the first time Musk and Bezos have clashed publicly, with some of their recent feuds centering on competing aerospace companies.
“If I were Bezos, I'd be worried, not just about Elon Musk's partnership with the president-elect, but the fact that his rocket development is years behind SpaceX's schedule.” Mark Whittington, an author who studies politics and policy, said:
Mr. Musk's SpaceX is a leader in the aerospace and rocket industry, hosting nearly 100 launches and deploying thousands of Starlink internet satellites last year. it is According to reports, things are progressing well. If the insider stake sale talks go through and a nearly $1 billion contract to destroy the International Space Station is reached, it would be worth $255 billion.
Blue Origin, which Bezos founded in 2000, lags behind SpaceX when it comes to rocket launches and has yet to reach orbit or fly a national security mission. that are in direct competition SpaceX and United Launch Alliance will be awarded $5.6 billion worth of Department of Defense contracts over the next five years.
The feud between the two companies reignited last June, when Bezos filed a complaint with the Federal Aviation Administration to limit Starship launches over environmental concerns.
musk at the time called moving It was a “clearly dishonest response” and the company was nicknamed “Sioux Origin” at the time.
And in 2021, Bezos sued NASA over SpaceX's lunar lander contract, but ultimately lost.
Mr. Musk, on the other hand, has a habit of taking on and attacking major business executives with his more progressive politics.
Last summer, he famously challenged Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (whose company is now known as Meta) to a cage match and defeated billionaire Mark Cuban, who had announced his support for Harris. Shared mocking social media jokes on social media.
Personal jabs aside, people familiar with the development say the battle between Musk and Bezos is larger and more consequential for the unofficial title of the world's top innovator and most powerful man. They argue that this is just part of the ongoing struggle.
“Musk's SpaceX is still dominant,” Whittington said. “Bezos is, and indeed other rocket companies are kind of following in SpaceX's footsteps, but Bezos is not happy about it.”
