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Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and now a space colonization evangelist whose dreams ride atop the Bue Origin rockets, is a man of few words. It’s rare to see him sitting for interviews and even rarer to watch him dish dirt on fellow world-leading billionaires, such as Elon Musk. However, in a recent episode of the Lex Fridman Podcast, Bezos comfortably skirted around years of slight jabs and heated behind-the-scenes rivalry between the two while heaping praise on the Tesla and SpaceX chief’s leadership capability.
Jeff Bezos envisions millions of space colonies, sustained by sunshine and vast resources available on the moon, asteroids and other parts of the solar system. Elon Musk envisions life on Mars. They need to talk about the long-range problems of humanity. pic.twitter.com/toyViUsLag
— Velina Tchakarova (@vtchakarova) December 14, 2023
“Well, I don’t really know Elon very well. I know his public persona, but I also know you can’t know anyone by their public persona. It’s impossible. I mean, you may think you do, but I guarantee you don’t,” Bezos said. He isn’t wrong in his observation — billionaires often portray an entirely different image to their audience, online or otherwise. Some get uber-rich by exploiting their talent, charisma, and leadership virtues. However, behind the scenes, a few have even lied about spearheading revolutionary blood tests, defrauding investors on electric truck innovations, or overseeing staged ads about advanced driving systems.
Still, billion-dollar rivalries aside, Bezos gave credit where it’s due, even though some might argue that the science and tech minds at Tesla and SpaceX deserve more credit for their magnificent success. “In terms of judging by the results, he must be a very capable leader. There’s no way you could have Tesla and SpaceX without being a capable leader. It’s impossible,” Bezos pointed out. Of course, over the years, things haven’t been as courteous, even if Bezos hasn’t been as brash and outspoken as Musk.
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Not long after Musk’s takeover of X, formerly known as Twitter, Bezos shared an article on X and asked whether the “town square” could feel pressure from China due to Musk’s deep business ties in the Asian superpower. However, Bezos himself posted a composed denial defending Musk soon after. “My own answer to this question is probably not. The more likely outcome in this regard is complexity in China for Tesla, rather than censorship at Twitter,” Bezos later added.
Late in 2021, when Musk again leapfrogged Bezos as the world’s richest man, he joked about sending him a consolation medal. “I’m sending a giant statue of the digit ‘2’ to Jeffrey B., along with a silver medal,” Musk wrote in an email to Forbes. But when it comes down to business, the jibes are brutal and the digs are more straightforward.
