- Elon Musk appeared to strike another blow at one of his main rivals, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
- “Give my regards to your puppet master,” Musk told The Washington Post.
- The remark appeared to be a reference to Bezos’ ownership of The Post, which Trump also criticized.
- Visit the Insider Business section for more stories.
It seems that the Elon Musk-Jeff Bezos rivalry still continues.
The two tech tycoons have vied for the title of richest person in the world in recent weeks, but they also have a rivalry for years that started because of their rival space ambitions. It seems that Musk has not forgotten, as evidenced by a recent excavation at Bezos.
The Washington Post’s Faiz Siddiqui published a report on Tuesday about how the demands of Musk’s time – including his travel schedule, personal life and focus on SpaceX, the rocket company he also runs – are starting to impact Tesla, leading what some critics consider to be mistakes in business management.
In reporting the story, which The Post said features interviews with a dozen current employees, investors and analysts and former Tesla, the publication contacted Musk by email and received a brief response in return.
“Give my regards to your puppet master,” said Musk in response to the Post’s request for comment.
The comment appears to be a reference to The Post’s Bezos estate – he bought the newspaper in 2013 for $ 250 million in cash. Both Bezos and The Post have repeatedly said that Amazon’s CEO has no influence on the Post’s editorial decisions.
But that did not stop critics from confusing the billionaire technology founder with the nearly 150-year-old publication, most vocal among them former President Donald Trump. Trump made Bezos and The Post a frequent target during his administration, tweeting that the newspaper spread “fake news” and served as Amazon’s “top lobbyist”.
With this latest splinter, Musk is adding fuel to a rivalry with Bezos that dates back to at least 2004. In the past 15 years, Musk has made a series of criticisms of Bezos and his rocket company, Blue Origin, including calling Bezos a copycat about some of their commercial ventures, describing Amazon as a monopoly and appearing to make some digs about Bezos’s age.
For his part, Bezos has repeatedly criticized the main objective of SpaceX and Musk, which is to send humans to Mars – Bezos described the idea as “demotivating”.
“Start at the top of Mount Everest for a year and see if you like it, because it is a heavenly garden compared to Mars,” said Bezos in 2019.