New Delhi: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who is one of the main rivals of Tesla chief Elon Musk, responded to the Twitter deal on Monday and raised concerns around the possibility of Chinese influence on Twitter.
The former Amazon CEO tweeted, 'Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage over the town square?' Responding to a tweet by New York Times reporter Mike Forsythe, Bezos hinted at the links between Musk and China.
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“Tesla’s second-biggest market in 2021 was China (after the US),” the tweet from Forsythe read. He noted that “Chinese battery makers are major suppliers for Tesla’s EVs” and that “After 2009, when China banned Twitter, the government there had almost no leverage over the platform.”
“That may have just changed,” wrote Forsythe.
Through this post, Bezos expressed scepticism and pondered over China's role in both Tesla and Twitter. "My own answer to this question is probably not. The more likely outcome in this regard is complexity in China for Tesla, rather than censorship at Twitter," noted the world's second richest man.
But we'll see. Musk is extremely good at navigating this kind of complexity," quipped Bezos.
Musk concluded a deal with Twitter on Monday to buy the platform for $44 billion. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of 2022, as per a Bloomberg report. Musk is likely to join the staff of social media company for a question-and-answer session at a later date, the company informed employees, according to Reuters.
Bezos shared a legendary public rivalry with Musk on Twitter. After the takeover, Bezos joined the chorus on Twitter questioning the deal. Amazon CEO owns The Washington Post and has a net worth ($177.5 billion); vaguely within Musk’s range ($264.6 billion), according to Forbes.
It is interesting to note that Bezos’ comments on Tesla’s relationship with China comes amid Reuters investigation in December that found Amazon had capitulated to demands from China to continue doing business and grow the company there.