### Jeff Bezos Denies Elon Musk's Allegation Amid Renewed Feud

The longstanding rivalry between two of the world's wealthiest entrepreneurs, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, has ignited once again. This latest flare-up came after Musk, the CEO of Tesla, accused Bezos of advising friends to sell their Tesla stock believing Donald Trump would lose the recent U.S. presidential election. Posting on X, Musk claimed, “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 refuted this allegation through X, responding with a firm, “Nope. 100% not true.” Musk, in turn, replied with what seemed to be either a sincere or sarcastic acknowledgment: “Well, then, I stand corrected,” followed by a crying laughing emoji.

The context of this dispute is critical given the tight alignment between the presidential election result and the fortunes of Musk's business ventures. Musk had significantly invested in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, contributing tens of millions of dollars. His support secured him a newly-created government division and a burgeoning personal relationship with President-elect Trump. This connection was visually cemented when Musk appeared in the Trump family photo on election night. In return, Trump has vocalized his support for Musk's companies, even attending a recent SpaceX rocket launch in Texas.

The effect of Trump’s endorsement on Elon Musk’s enterprises is evident as Tesla's stock surged by about 40% in the week following the election and has risen 53% over the month. Conscious of the stakes, Musk admitted he would have faced significant challenges had Trump lost the election.

In contrast, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, remained neutral during the election, abstaining from endorsing either Vice President Harris or President-elect Trump. He also defended his position to stop The Washington Post from endorsing a candidate, arguing that such endorsements contribute to a perception of bias rather than influencing electoral outcomes.

The contentious relationship between Musk and Bezos extends beyond the political arena, spilling over into their business dealings. Amazon, founded by Bezos, launched Project Kuiper, planning to invest $10 billion in low-Earth orbit satellites for internet services. The company signed contracts with the United Launch Alliance (ULA), Arianespace, and Blue Origin—Bezos’s own space venture. Notably absent from this collaboration was Musk's SpaceX, despite it having launched approximately 5,000 internet satellites for its Starlink service since 2019. Amazon shareholders pointed to the rivalry between Musk and Bezos as the reason for SpaceX’s exclusion, a decision reportedly influenced by Bezos's competitive stance against Musk.

This episode joins a series of jibes exchanged between the two, with Musk previously taunting that Bezos had "retired in order to pursue a full-time job filing lawsuits against SpaceX" and scoffing that Bezos couldn't "sue [his] way to the moon."