Bezos, Musk rivalry heats up ahead of Trump’s second term

A social media spat between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos this week underscored a sharpening rivalry between two of the world’s richest men at a time when both are trying to grow their sprawling business empires in President-elect Trump’s second term.

“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 Thursday of his fellow Tech mogul on X, the social platform he owns.  

“Nope. 100% not true,” Bezos, who posts on social media less frequently, replied.  

Observers say the dynamic between Bezos and Musk could get more tense. Musk in particular has endeared himself to Trump, part of a larger rightward shift among Silicon Valley leaders.  

“It goes to show the split between different approaches among the tech community,” GOP strategist Chris Johnson told The Hill. “There are a lot of folks like Elon...who have sort of embraced the right as the ‘move fast and break things’ party for better or for worse.” 

Musk and Bezos have decidedly different personalities and political views.  

The Tesla founder is a bona fide social media influencer, who posts dozens of times a day on X, a platform he owns, and sits regularly for interviews with friendly hosts and media personalities.  

Bezos has kept a much lower profile since founding Amazon and purchasing the Washington Post, opting to communicate through corporate representatives and in polished remarks to investors and employees.  

Musk has been seen as a leading voice within Silicon Valley on the right in recent years and this month landed a government-adjacent role under Trump to co-lead an initiative tasked with slashing government spending and regulations. 

Leaders of major tech companies – including Bezos – are taking note of Musk’s growing prominence in Trump’s orbit.  

Many of these Silicon Valley leaders, reacting to sweeping changes to the economy Trump is promising, made a series of calls to the then GOP candidate in the days before the election, looking to shore up relations with his incoming administration.   

The social media tiff between Musk and Bezos this week shows Musk’s alliance with Trump, coupled with the success of his tech ventures, has gotten Bezos’ attention, observers say.  

“Now that Democrats are out of power, I think he’s in a weird spot in his political leanings, his political relationship to D.C. and also his relationship with these new tech guys that have embraced the GOP,” Johnson said of Bezos.

Representatives for Bezos and Musk declined to comment.  

Bezos has come under attack from Trump and the right more generally, for years.  

His ownership of the Washington Post, a publication that made a name for itself during Trump’s first term with aggressive coverage of the former president, has earned Bezos regular scorn from conservative critics.  

There are, however, signs of change at the Post, which earlier this month shocked the political and media world by not endorsing a candidate for president.  

Bezos personally made the decision to kill an editorial, which had been drafted and backed Vice President Harris, sparking concerns the billionaire was attempting to appease Trump.  

In an op-ed defending the move, Bezos brushed aside suggestions he was trying to curry favor with Trump or help his businesses.  

“You can see my wealth and business interests as a bulwark against intimidation, or you can see them as a web of conflicting interests,” Bezos wrote. “Only my own principles can tip the balance from one to the other.” 

The Amazon founder's latest counter punch at Musk on social media and any future rebuffing of the eccentric conservative might get Trump’s attention and mend fences with the president-elect, Johnson suggested.  

“It helps him [Bezos] to engage with Elon,” he said, adding, “Ultimately, Trump likes people who fight and people who believe in themselves and people who embrace conflict as a way to solve problems and move forward.” 

This is far from the first time Musk and Bezos have clashed in the public eye, with several of their recent feuds centered around their competing aerospace companies. 

“If I were Bezos, I’d be worried. It’s not just Elon Musk’s alliance with the incoming president, it’s the fact that his rocket development is years behind schedule of SpaceX,” said Mark Whittington, an author who studies space, politics and policy. 

Musk’s SpaceX leads the aerospace and rocket industry, hosting nearly 100 launches last year and deploying thousands of its Starlink internet satellites. It is reportedly on track to be valued at $255 billion if discussions to sell insider shares go through and holds a nearly billion-dollar contract to bring down the International Space Station. 

Blue Origin, founded in 2000 by Bezos, has lagged behind SpaceX when it comes to rocket launches and has yet to reach orbit or fly a national security mission. It is in direct competition with SpaceX and United Launch Alliance for $5.6 billion worth of Pentagon contracts over the next five years.   

Bezos reignited the feud over the companies last June, when he filed a complaint with the Federal Aviation Administration to limit Starship launches, citing environmental concerns.  

Musk at the time called the move an “obviously disingenuous response,” nicknaming the company “Sue Origin” at the time.  

And in 2021, Bezos sued NASA over awarding a lunar lander contract to SpaceX, but ultimately lost the suit.  

Musk meanwhile has made a regular habit of feuding with or needling leading business executives with more progressive politics.  

He famously challenged Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder whose company is known today as Meta, to a cage match last summer and shared social media jokes mocking billionaire Mark Cuban as he voiced support for Harris.  

Personal jabs aside, those aware of the dynamic say the fight between Musk and Bezos is merely part of a larger, more consequential struggle for the unofficial title of the world’s top innovator and most powerful man.  

“Musk’s SpaceX is still dominant right now,” said Whittington. “Bezos is and in fact every other rocket company has been kind of following in SpaceX’s footsteps and Bezos is not happy about that.”