• Slide 1 of 13: While there are many close friendships in Silicon Valley, there are also plenty of feuds. Some appear to be friendly rivalries, like Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. Others are more contentious: Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, for example, have been feuding for years.  Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Silicon Valley is a breeding ground for rivalries. In a place where world-changing ideas are born and billions of dollars are at stake, it's only natural that rivalries develop between Silicon Valley's power players, ranging from friendly sparring to pointed critiques. While some feuds, like the one between Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Oracle founder Larry Ellison, appear to be born out of a close friendship and mutual respect, others - like the one between Mark Zuckerberg and Evan Spiegel - started over a spurned acquisition offer. Here are some of the long-standing feuds, friendly or otherwise, between some of the world's most powerful execs.Read the original article on Business Insider
  • Slide 2 of 13: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk aren't competitors in any earthly pursuits, but they're bitter rivals when it comes to outer space. Bezos founded his rocket company, Blue Origin, in 2000, while Musk founded SpaceX in 2002. Two years later, the pair met for dinner, and even then, things were getting testy."I actually did my best to give good advice, which he largely ignored," Musk said after the meeting.In 2013, their rivalry heated up when SpaceX tried to get exclusive use of a NASA launch pad and Blue Origin (along with SpaceX rival United Launch Alliance) filed a formal protest with the government. Musk called it a "phony blocking tactic" and SpaceX eventually won the right to take over the pad. Months later, the two companies got into a patent battle, and soon after, Bezos and Musk took their feud public, trading barbs on Twitter.Once, when the BBC asked Musk about Bezos, he responded, "Jeff who?" For his part, Bezos has frequently criticized the idea of colonizing Mars — a main goal of SpaceX — describing the idea as "un-motivating."Most recently, Musk appeared to make another dig at Bezos over his ownership of The Washington Post: When The Post reached out to Musk for comment on a report that his attention was drifting away from Tesla, Musk responded, "Give my regards to your puppet master."
  • Slide 3 of 13: Elon Musk and Bill Gates don't appear to have a warm relationship, at least if their comments about each other over the last year are any indication. Things heated up in February when Gates said during an interview with YouTuber Marques Brownlee that while Tesla has helped drive innovation and adoption of electric vehicles, he didn't buy a Tesla when making a recent vehicle purchase — he bought a Porsche Taycan. In response, Musk tweeted that his conversations with Gates have always been "underwhelming." Then, in July, Gates said in an interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box" that Musk's comments about COVID-19 are "outrageous," as Musk has frequently downplayed the severity of the virus and questioned how the US has handled its coronavirus response. Musk took to Twitter a few days later to taunt Gates, tweeting, "Billy G is not my lover" and "The rumor that Bill Gates & I are lovers is completely untrue."Gates has recently critiqued Musk over his space ambitions, telling Kara Swisher "I don't think rockets are the solution" and that he'd rather spend money on vaccines. He also warned against buying into the mania over cryptocurrencies, which Musk frequently promotes on Twitter."My general thought would be that, if you have less money than Elon, you should probably watch out," Gates told Bloomberg.
 While there are many close friendships in Silicon Valley, there are also plenty of feuds. Some appear to be friendly rivalries, like Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. Others are more contentious: Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, for example, have been feuding for years.  Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories. Silicon Valley is a breeding ground for rivalries. In a place where world-changing ideas are born and billions of dollars are at stake, it’s only natural that rivalries develop between Silicon Valley’s power players, ranging from friendly sparring to pointed critiques.
While some feuds, like the one between Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Oracle founder Larry Ellison, appear to be born out of a close friendship and mutual respect, others – like the one between Mark Zuckerberg and Evan Spiegel – started over a spurned acquisition offer. Here are some of the long-standing feuds, friendly or otherwise, between some of the world’s most powerful execs.Read the original article on Business Insider


Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have been publicly feuding for over 15 years. Here are all the biggest rivalries that have formed between some of the world’s most high-powered tech leaders.

  • While there are many close friendships in Silicon Valley, there are also plenty of feuds.
  • Some appear to be friendly rivalries, like Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.
  • Others are more contentious: Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, for example, have been feuding for years.
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Silicon Valley is a breeding ground for rivalries.

In a place where world-changing ideas are born and billions of dollars are at stake, it’s only natural that rivalries develop between Silicon Valley’s power players, ranging from friendly sparring to pointed critiques.

While some feuds, like the one between Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Oracle founder Larry Ellison, appear to be born out of a close friendship and mutual respect, others – like the one between Mark Zuckerberg and Evan Spiegel – started over a spurned acquisition offer.

Here are some of the long-standing feuds, friendly or otherwise, between some of the world’s most powerful execs