The Two Richest People in the World Are Fighting on Social Media Again Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk had a new, contentious exchange on X.
By Sherin Shibu Edited by Melissa Malamut
Key Takeaways
- Elon Musk threw accusations at Jeff Bezos on X on Thursday, but Bezos denied the report.
- The two tech leaders have a history of contentious exchanges on social media.
- Musk and Bezos are the first and second richest people in the world, respectively.
Earlier this week, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos got into a public disagreement on X, the platform Musk owns, about comments Bezos allegedly said about President-elect Donald Trump. Though Bezos denies making the remarks.
"Just learned tonight at Mar-a-Lago that Jeff Bezos was telling everyone that @realDonaldTrump would lose for sure, so they should sell all their Tesla and SpaceX stock," Musk wrote on Thursday in a post viewed more than 44 million times (according to X) at the time of writing.
Bezos replied to the post, stating "Nope. 100% not true" to which Musk responded, "Well, then, I stand corrected."
Nope. 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 hasn't stopped the two tech titans from squabbling it out on social media.
Musk (left) and Bezos (right). Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI,MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
Musk leads space exploration company SpaceX and Bezos is the head of rival firm Blue Origin. Since 2004, the two companies have gotten into patent battles, spats over talent, and arguments over which one accomplished space feats first.
For example, Bezos shaded Musk's ambition to colonize Mars in a private lecture in 2019, while Musk called him a copycat the same year for his plans for internet satellites.
Musk said in a 2021 interview with the Financial Times that Bezos "does take himself a bit too seriously" and "does not seem to be willing to spend mental energy getting into the details of engineering."
Related: Elon Musk Makes Fun of Bezos on Twitter, Purposely Spells His Name Wrong
Musk also publicly criticized Bezos' project "The Rings of Power," a Lord of the Rings adaptation released in 2022, tweeting "Tolkien is turning in his grave."
While the power dynamics between Musk and Bezos may shift after Trump's win, this most recent exchange proves that the dynamics between the two richest people in the world remain contentious.
Trump recently appointed Musk a co-lead of the new Department of Government Efficiency to help downsize the U.S. government.
