A few months ago, the exchange of posts between Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk on X page could be considered a small conflict between the two richest billionaires in the world. Both did not hesitate to use harsh words, “slapping” each other in public.
But times have changed.
“Just saw tonight at Mar-a-Lago that Jeff Bezos told everyone that @realDonaldTrump is definitely going to lose, so they should sell all their Tesla and SpaceX stock if they are in the middle,” Musk wrote Wednesday night, referring to his two companies. He added an emoji of a giggling face with a hand over his mouth.
“No. 100% not true,” Bezos replied under the post on Thursday morning.
“Okay, then I’ll correct you,” Musk replied, along with a crying-laughing emoji.
Notably, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s relationship with billionaire Bezos has not been smooth in the past, so the above posts convey a hidden message about Musk’s growing power in the upcoming administration.
The brief exchange was typical of Musk’s dominating presence on X — which could herald a tumultuous next few years for Bezos and the companies he founded, like Amazon and rocket maker Blue Origin. It was also a reminder that the power dynamics in the long-running rivalry between the world’s two richest men shifted on Nov. 5.
Many tech executives have drawn Trump’s ire over the years, but Bezos’s anger may be even higher, largely because he owns The Washington Post, a newspaper that frequently criticizes Trump. (The Post did not endorse a presidential candidate this year, a decision that angered many readers and that Bezos has publicly defended.)
Mr Trump has complained that Amazon got an unfair deal with the Postal Service. There is also a legal battle over whether he interfered with a $10 billion military cloud computing contract that many expected Amazon to win. The contract was awarded to Microsoft before it was canceled altogether.
Few business tycoons have as much influence on the incoming presidential administration as Musk. He has become deeply involved with Mr. Trump’s campaign, a major financial backer and a near-constant presence at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Trump has appointed Musk to co-head what the president-elect calls the “Department of Government Efficiency,” giving Musk a broad mandate to cut federal spending and bureaucracy, so Musk will likely have significant influence over how the federal government interacts with Bezos’s companies.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk have also become travel companions. They stood side by side at the Ultimate Fighting Championship event at Madison Square Garden in New York over the weekend. And on Tuesday, Mr. Trump attended a test flight of Musk’s Starship rocket in Texas.
Representatives for Musk and Bezos did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The two men have long been rivals, especially in their space ambitions. Musk believes humanity should head to Mars, and through SpaceX, his private space company, he has become the world’s leading rocket launch company.
Bezos, meanwhile, founded Blue Origin more than two decades ago, and it has been his primary focus since stepping down as Amazon CEO in 2021. Blue Origin has made a few short commercial flights into space, but has yet to put anything into orbit. In February, the company said it planned to test a giant rocket, New Glenn, later this year.
Musk has repeatedly called Bezos a copycat, and the companies have sued each other. In a 2021 interview with The Financial Times, Musk criticized Bezos’ Blue Origin management.
“In some ways, I’m trying to push him to spend more time at Blue Origin so they can make more progress,” Musk said. “As a friend of mine said, he should spend more time at Blue Origin and less time in a hot tub.”
According to: NYTimes
‘Minister’ Elon Musk and Mr. Donald Trump have done something unprecedented in history
