Elon Musk came out in support of fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos after the former Amazon CEO defended the Washington Post’s decision not to endorse a candidate in the 2024 presidential election.
In an op-ed Monday night, Bezos said political endorsements “create a perception of bias” and argued that ending the long-standing practice of endorsing a White House candidate was a “decision based on principles and is correct. ‘
‘Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the balance of an election. No undecided voter in Pennsylvania is going to say, “I’ll support Newspaper A.” None,” he wrote.
In response, writing in
Elon Musk has come out in support of billionaire Jeff Bezos after the former Amazon CEO defended his newspaper’s decision not to endorse a candidate in the 2024 presidential election.
Musk wrote “congratulations to @JeffBezos” while retweeting an earlier tweet that read: “Congratulations to @JeffBezos for telling the newsroom the hard, bitter truth: there is nothing wrong with readers.”
Musk’s recognition and applause seem to melt their long-standing dispute a little.
That tweet also contained a selection of Bezos’ words from the op-ed: “Reality is an undefeated champion.” It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing decline in credibility (and therefore our impact), but a victim mentality won’t help. Complaining is not a strategy. “We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.”
Musk’s recognition and applause seem to melt their long-standing dispute a bit.
Those paid have been fighting for two decades for control of space tourism and for contracts with NASA.
The rivalry dates back to 2004, when Bezos accepted an invitation from Musk to tour the SpaceX facilities.
He then received a “somewhat brief email” from Musk “expressing annoyance” that Bezos had not invited Musk to Blue Origin in Seattle, so Bezos quickly did so.
But during the tour, Bezos was surprised when Musk began explaining how to run the company.
Musk said, “Dude, we tried that and it turned out to be really dumb, so I’m telling you, don’t do the dumb thing we did.”
Bezos thought Musk was “overconfident” given that he had not yet launched a rocket, Isaacson writes.
Much of the dispute between Musk and Bezos centers on their control of space tourism and contracts with NASA over the past two decades.
Bezos became the first to launch a rocket to the edge of space but it is Musk’s Space X that has soared, launching 102 rockets so far this year. Bezos appears in the photo with Lauren Sánchez
Tensions flared again in 2011, when NASA approved SpaceX to use the famous Pad 39A at its Cape Canaveral launch site in Florida, which was used by the Apollo missions.
Bezos sued and Musk was ‘furious’.
Musk thought it was “ridiculous” that Blue Origin was complaining “when they haven’t even managed to put a toothpick into orbit.”
Bezos further angered Musk when he applied for a patent called “sea landing of space launch vehicles.”
Musk complained that there had been talk of landing ships at sea for 50 years. SpaceX sued and Bezos appeared to cancel the patent.
In November 2015, Bezos became the first to launch a rocket to the edge of space on an 11-minute, 62-mile-high journey.
In his first tweet, Bezos said that “full reuse (of a rocket) is a game changer.” He called his reusable rocket “the rarest of beasts.”
Musk made fun of it in a Tweet saying: “It’s not entirely ‘weird’, SpaceX Grasshopper made 6 suborbital flights 3 years ago and it still exists.”
Four weeks later, Musk accomplished the same feat with a Falcon 9 rocket, earning what appeared to be praise from Bezos, who tweeted: “Congratulations @spacex on the fixed Falcon suborbital boost stage.” Welcome to the club!’
Tension between the two men really rose in April 2021, when SpaceX won contracts with NASA to carry astronauts on the final leg of the journey to the moon.
The rivalry dates back to 2004, when Bezos accepted an invitation from Musk to tour SpaceX facilities, Isaacson writes.
In a lengthy op-ed published on the Post’s own website Monday night, Bezos attempted to justify his publication’s position.
A celebratory Musk mocked Bezos when he tweeted: “Can’t put it into orbit lol.”
Musk further stoked antagonism with Bezos with a 2021 interview in which he praised Bezos for having a “reasonably good engineering aptitude” but said he didn’t spend enough time on the details.
Musk mocked Bezos’ wealthy lifestyle and compared it to him living in rented homes in Texas.
Musk said: “In some ways I’m trying to prompt him to spend more time at Blue Origin so they can make more progress.” “I should spend more time at Blue Origin and less time in the hot tub.”
While Musk is a big supporter of Trump and has been on the campaign trail giving away $1 million a day to newly registered voters who will pledge their support for the former president, Bezos has been more of a thorn in Trump’s side.
In fact, when Trump first ran for president, he began threatening how Amazon and Jeff Bezos would pay the price.
‘If I become president, oh, will they have problems? They are going to have those problems,’ he warned.
Trump was particularly offended by Bezos’ ownership of the Washington Post.
Elon Musk spoke at a Donald Trump political rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday.
Trump was particularly offended by Bezos’ ownership of the Washington Post during his first presidency.
He raged against what he called the ‘Amazon Washington Post,’ falsely claiming to have avoided ‘Internet taxes.’
During his time in office, Trump became “obsessed” with retaliation against Bezos for the Post’s negative coverage of him.
“Every hour we get calls from Washington Post reporters asking ridiculous questions,” he once ranted. ‘And I’ll tell you: this is owned like a toy by Jeff Bezos, who controls Amazon. Amazon is getting away with it, fiscally speaking. He’s using the Washington Post to gain power.
During the Trump administration, Amazon sued the government after alleging that it had blocked a $10 billion cloud computing services contract with the Pentagon because of the then-president’s anger over the Post’s coverage.
Yes, throughout Trump’s presidency, Bezos resolutely supported staff coverage and has not interfered with reporting on his own business interests or personal life.
The Washington Post has decided not to endorse any of the presidential candidates.
The Washington Post has announced that it will not endorse any presidential candidate, sparking fury among its liberal readers who have vowed to cancel their subscriptions to the newspaper.
Columnist Robert Kagan, a conservative Trump critic, resigned from his editorial board position after the decision became known.
It’s what makes the sudden decision not to endorse a candidate so late in the game so curious, and in particular not to endorse the Democratic candidate.
Former columnist Robert Kagan, the editor-at-large, once explained on CNN his decision Friday night to resign from the paper.
“In fact, we kneel before Donald Trump because we are afraid of what he will do,” Kagan said. The daily beast this weekend.
“Trump waited to make sure Bezos did what he said he was going to do and then met with the Bezos Blue Origin people,” Kagad explained, “which tells us that a real deal was reached, which means Bezos He communicated, or through his people, communicated directly with Trump and they established this quid pro quo.
On Monday night, Bezos expressly denied that any quid pro quo had occurred regarding the removal of any candidate’s endorsement.
‘I would also like to make it clear that there is no type of compensation here. Neither the campaign nor the candidate were consulted or informed at any level or in any way about this decision. “It was done entirely in-house,” Bezos wrote.