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Billionaire feud between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos escalates

Elon Musk
Elon Musk

Elon Musk has called for the break-up of Amazon after an author complained on Twitter that they were blocked from self-publishing a book by the retailer, escalating a feud with Amazon’s boss Jeff Bezos.

"This is insane @JeffBezos," Musk tweeted at Amazon's chief. Both men are billionaires and oversee competing space exploration companies on top of their duties at Telsa and Amazon. "Time to break up Amazon. Monopolies are wrong!" Musk added in a second tweet.

In recent years, Amazon has allowed budding authors to publish their own work through Kindle, promising a quick and easy process that gives them a chance to “control” the rights of their work.

The book, entitled “Unreported truths about Covid-19 and lockdowns”, did not “comply” with Amazon’s guidelines, according to an email received by the author Alex Berenson that was posted onto Twitter.

The retailer had no comment on Musk's call for its dissolution but said the book in question had been blocked in error and was now available for sale via its Kindle e-reading service. The decision to greenlight the book's sale was not due to Musk, Amazon said.

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Technology intelligence - newsletter promo - EOA

Musk’s latest criticisms continue an ongoing battle between the two US billionaires who are both competing with each other directly in a race to commercialise space travel.

At a private gathering in New York last year, Bezos took issue with Musk’s ambitions to colonise Mars with his private spaceflight company SpaceX.

"My friends who want to move to Mars? I say do me a favour: go live on the top of Mount Everest for a year first and see if you like it, because it's a garden paradise compared to Mars," he said.

Meanwhile the SpaceX chief has repeatedly downplayed comparisons between his company and Jeff Bezos’ space firm Blue Origin, claiming that his ambitions are much grander.

The pair have also feuded over the rights to use a launch pad once owned by Nasa in Florida. The battle saw Amazon's chief executive file a complaint with the US government over the use of the site by SpaceX, while Mr Musk hit back, calling the move a "phony blocking tactic".

The launch pad was eventually won by SpaceX.