Jeff Bezos doesn't post much on X, but he emerged on Thursday morning to hit back at fellow billionaire Elon Musk, who made an allegation about the Amazon founder that he roundly refutes. "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 overnight about his space exploration rival, prompting a response from Bezos. "Nope. 100% not true," Bezos calmly replied after the sun came up, prompting an X Community Note correcting the site's owner.
Musk's eventual retort, a couple of hours later: "Well, then, I stand corrected," accompanied by a laugh emoji. On the day after Election Day, Bezos had offered "big congratulations" to Trump on X for his "extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory," adding, "No nation has bigger opportunities. Wishing @realDonaldTrump all success in leading and uniting the America we all love." The Wall Street Journal notes that even though Bezos' banter on X is rare, the verbal sparring between the two men isn't new, with Musk often boasting he's richer than Bezos (currently true) and poking at Amazon, and Bezos hitting back with jokes about Musk wanting to colonize Mars.
The Journal also details the contrast in Bezos' and Musk's relationships with President-elect Trump (the former chilly, the latter chummy), with the New York Times pointing out a "new power dynamic" between Musk and Bezos, now that Musk "has the ear of the next president of the United States," including in his role as co-chief of the so-called "Department of Government Efficiency." The paper also notes that the exchange "could foreshadow a bumpy next few years for Mr. Bezos and the companies he started," including both Amazon and rocket manufacturer Blue Origin. (More Elon Musk stories.)