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Musk trolls Bezos after becoming world’s richest, but public unimpressed

Billionaire Elon Musk has further fuelled his feud with Jeff Bezos after trolling the Amazon founder for touting the success of his company despite the wealth gap widening between the two.

At the time of writing, SpaceX founder Elon Musk is currently the richest man in the world after seeing his personal wealth sky-rocket last week, following a secondary share sale by investors. According the Forbes, Musk’s personal wealth currently stands at $206.6 billion, while Bezos’ stands at $189.5 billion.

After Bezos tweeted a photo of Barron’s magazine cover from 1999, with a story expecting Amazon to fail, Musk went as far as tweeting a silver medal emoji at Bezos.

While Bezos’ tweet received some positive responses, Musk’s silver medal tweet has inspired far more reactions and memes, with no sympathy for either billionaire.

In response to Musk’s silver medal emoji tweet, Bernie Sanders tweeted: “And one out of four Americans can’t afford to fill the prescriptions their doctor has prescribed them. Let’s tax Mr. Musk and Mr. Bezos so that they finally pay their fair share of taxes, and invest that money into the many, many long-neglected needs of working class Americans.”

Ian Bremmer added: “Fact-check: True”

Joe Pompliano wrote: “Jeff Bezos spent time writing up a motivational message about Amazon’s success. But Elon Musk ratioed him with a second-place medal emoji, as Musk has recently passed Bezos to become the richest person in the world again. This is the type of pettiness I’m here for.”

Matt Wallace added: “ELON MUSK JUST ENDED JEFF BEZOS’S ENTIRE CAREER WITH ONE EMOJI”.

‘Billionaire philanthropy is a sham’

Robert Reich said: “Reminder: Despite all the fluffy PR, both Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have given away less than 1% of their wealth. Billionaire philanthropy is a sham.”

Another Twitter user wrote: “Billionaires are taunting each other over who’s got the biggest money pile while Congress debates whether we “can afford” to house the homeless, make childcare more affordable, and feed hungry school kids. Seriously, it’s time to make billionaires pay more taxes.”

‘World’s second biggest asshole’

Another said: “Awarding the medal for the world’s second biggest asshole (only behind you) I see”.

One Twitter user added: “These 2 dudes can wipe out world hunger AND poverty but prefer to gloat and take jabs at each other. Oh, and they little to no taxes.”

“I normally I don’t like it when Elon acts like this… but with Jeff it is so deserved”

“Wealth truly is just a dick measuring contest to these people “

Related: ‘Pure privilege’: John Lewis criticised for middle class’ home insurance ad

Jon Hatchman

Jonathan is Food Editor for The London Economic. Jonathan has run and contributed towards a number of blogs, and has written features for publications such as Eater London, The Guardian, i News, The Independent, GQ, Time Out London and more.

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