'Give my regards to your puppet master': Elon Musk's veiled dig at Jeff Bezos over Washington Post piece

Tesla CEO Elon Musk took a veiled swipe at Amazon chief and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos after the American daily carried an article claiming that Musk is distracted from running the company because of his other commitments.

The article titled "Elon Musk moved to Texas and embraced celebrity. Can Tesla run on Autopilot?" cites Musk's critics as saying that he "is drowning in outside commitments like his aerospace company and other endeavours while letting quality - and strategy - at Tesla fall victim."

The report further states that Musk's external obligations have led to a "series of questionable business moves, and even outright missteps by Tesla." It adds that Tesla's CEO's subordinates are hesitant to question his vision.

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When the publication reached out to Musk for his comments over the story, he responded by saying, "give my regards to your puppet master."

The remark appeared to be a veiled reference to Bezos, who owns the paper, which he bought in 2013 for $250 million in cash.

Although Bezos and the daily have repeatedly stated that the former has no influence on the latter's editorial decisions, critics have from time to time linked and slammed the two, the most vocal among them former President Donald Trump.

As President, he often critiqued Bezos and the newspaper, even terming it Amazon's "chief strategist" and "fake news".

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Musk and Bezos have recently been flip-flopping for the title of the World's richest person, besides having years-long friction over their competing outer-space ambitions.

Musk has also been critical of Bezos in the past, calling him a copycat and likening Amazon to a monopoly. For his part, Bezos has frequently taken subtle jibes at Space X and Musk's aim of sending humans to Mars, describing the idea as "un-motivating."

"My friends who want to move to Mars, I say, do me a favour and 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," Bezos had said in 2019.

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