Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have reignited their long-running feud after the X owner claimed the Amazon founder advised friends to sell their Tesla shares because Donald Trump was going to lose the presidential election.
Posting on X Musk—the CEO of the EV-maker—wrote: “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.”
Bezos quickly returned: “Nope. 100% not true.”
Musk replied sincerely or sarcastically: “Well, then, I stand corrected,” with a crying laughing face.
The links between this year’s presidential election outcome and the relative prosperity of Musk-owned entities are clear.
Firstly, the Tesla CEO personally pumped tens of millions of dollars into Trump’s presidential campaign—earning himself a newly-created government division as a result.
A close personal relationship also seems to be forming between President-elect Trump and X owner Musk, with the world’s richest man even appearing in Trump’s family photo on election night.
Trump is also throwing his weight behind some of Musk’s business endeavors, traveling to Texas this week to watch a Space X rocket launch.
And while the former president also previously held negative views on electric vehicles (saying EV drivers are “[destroying] our once great USA” and should “rot in hell), he changed his tune following Musk’s endorsement.
“I’m for electric cars, I have to be because Elon endorsed me very strongly,” Trump told supporters on the campaign trail.
At a later rally, he added: “I’ve driven them, and they are incredible, but they’re not for everybody.”
The Republican candidate’s backing led to a huge rally in Tesla stock following the election: In the week following, the company’s share price soared approximately 40% and is up 53% for the month at the time of writing.
While the stakes were high for Musk—who admitted he would have been “f*cked” if Trump had lost the election—the bet has paid off.
Meanwhile, other business leaders were mindful of backing one candidate or the other—conscious that if they spoke out against a victorious Trump, it could bode badly for them during his term.
Bezos did not endorse either Vice President Harris or President-elect Trump personally or via his businesses.
