Jeff Bezos is pushing back against Tesla CEO Elon Musk's claims that the Amazon founder predicted President-elect Trump would lose the 2024 presidential election.
“Tonight at Mar-a-Lago, I learned that Jeff Bezos said @realDonaldTrump is sure to lose, so he should sell all his Tesla and SpaceX stock.” Mr Musk wrote on his social media platform X early Thursday morning.
“No. Not 100% true.” Bezos answered.
“Then I'm in the right place,” Musk replied with a laughing emoji.
Trump won both the electoral college and the popular vote, and received strong support from Musk. During his second term, Musk was chosen to co-head the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with Vivek Ramaswamy.
Mr. Musk's good relationship with Mr. Trump has given investors further confidence in the success of Mr. Musk's companies, particularly Tesla and SpaceX, which have billions of dollars in government contracts. Tesla stock has risen nearly 57% in the past month.
Bezos, the owner of The Washington Post, has not endorsed either presidential candidate this year, halting his editorial board's endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, and making new announcements that he will not endorse any presidential candidates. After establishing the policy, the newspaper's staff and subscribers revolted. candidates.
After the election, Bezos congratulated Trump on his “extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory.”
According to Forbes magazine, Musk is the richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of $316.2 billion. Bezos is third on the outlet's real-time billionaires list, with a fortune of $217.4 billion. But Mr. Bezos has held the top spot several times in recent years, most recently briefly overtaking Mr. Musk in March.
Bezos and Musk are also rivals in the space race, where their respective aerospace companies, Blue Origin and SpaceX, compete in space travel and exploration. Amazon also plans to partner with Blue Origin to launch Project Kuiper, a satellite broadband service that will compete with Musk's Starlink.
