Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla (TSLA), can hold a deep grudge.
When he falls out with someone he finds it difficult to move on. He dwells on the episode, tries to find the cause or causes of the dispute, and then shares them with his 96 million followers on the social network Twitter.
A prominent example: his falling out with fellow tech tycoon Bill Gates, whose environmental efforts Musk called into question because the co-founder of software giant Microsoft (MSFT) shorted Tesla stock. Read about it here and here and here.
Another dispute has been troubling Musk, the world's richest man, for several months: his disenchantment with President Joe Biden and the Democrats.
For some of his detractors, Musk, who has been living in Texas since last year, finally showed his true colors when he disclosed that he would be voting Republican in November.
One of their points is that the billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal (PYPL) with Musk and others, is his friend. Thiel was a major financial supporter of former President Donald Trump and a major donor to Republican candidates.
In addition, these critics also complain about Musk's criticisms of wokism, his outspoken opposition to unions, and accusations of race discrimination by former Tesla employees.
Musk Is Looking for Answers
But things seem more complex than this.
If Musk now accuses the Democratic Party of having yielded to pressure from its progressive wing, it's noteworthy that until about a year ago he was still voting Democratic. For the first time, the entrepreneur has revealed that he voted for Joe Biden during the 2020 presidential election.
Musk has proposed to acquire Twitter. If he now says he would reactivate Trump's Twitter account once he completes the acquisition, Musk has also said that Trump was too divisive a candidate for the 2024 presidential election.
Musk, who also voted twice for Barack Obama, has said that his rift with the Democrats began to widen when the Biden administration excluded and ignored Tesla in events celebrating the automotive sector's transformation to electrification.
Musk particularly resented the fact that Biden presented General Motors (GM) as a leader in the transformation of the sector, when the Detroit giant, for example, sold fewer than 25,000 electric vehicles in 2021, when Tesla sold nearly a million.
He did not understand why Biden did not celebrate the exploits of SpaceX, which has revived dreams of conquering space. Obama did.
The billionaire now seems to have found an answer, and has responded. It's partly because of MacKenzie Scott, former wife of Amazon (AMZN) Founder Jeff Bezos.
It all started with a recent thread on Twitter.
"Elon, what do you think changed with the recent Democratic party?" asked a hardcore fan of the billionaire on May 31. "I believe when Obama was running the office, he was an ardent supporter of Tesla/SpaceX & you in general. I wonder what happened now?"
MacKenzie Scott, Ex-Bezos, Is the Problem?
To which Musk replied in the affirmative and, for the first time, put forward Scott as the person responsible for the recent tensions.
"True," the billionaire responded. "Tesla was attacked by [former Republican presidential candidate Mitt] Romney in 2 of 3 presidential debates. Those lines were fed to him by a particular individual in the oil & gas industry," he added without providing the name of the "individual."
He continued:
"The Dems turned negative over the past ~12 months. At least part of it is Mackenzie’s donation to PACs posing as charities."
Since he didn't give a last name, many users then asked him if he was talking about MacKenzie Scott.
"This," asked one Twitter user with a link to a March story from CNN about new donations of $3.8 billion to 465 organizations made by the author and philanthropist.
"Yes," Musk, 50, responded.
He then went on to put forward a theory that Scott would give her money to nonprofits that criticize her ex-husband, Jeff Bezos, to get revenge on him, Musk.
"It’s safe to say that Mackenzie [ahem] Scott is not exactly a big fan of her ex-husband," Musk said, adding that he and other billionaires are arguably the casualties of Scott's enmity toward Bezos.
"Unfortunately, a lot of others are getting caught in the crossfire."
Musk and Bezos, who are the first and second richest men in the world respectively, are presented as symbols of economic and social inequality by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
After 25 years of marriage, the Bezoses in 2019 announced an amicable divorce, marked by the transfer of 4% of Amazon to Scott.
She promised, through The Giving Pledge, to distribute her wealth during her lifetime without holding organizations to account.
"When our giving team focuses on any system in which people are struggling, we don’t assume that we, or any other single group, can know how to fix it," Scott wrote in a Medium blog in March.
"We don’t advocate for particular policies or reforms. Instead, we seek a portfolio of organizations that supports the ability of all people to participate in solutions.
"This means a focus on the needs of those whose voices have been underrepresented."
Scott, 52, has thus far given away more than $12 billion of her personal wealth to organizations across the U.S., helping children, women, minorities and refugees and enabling rural health access, according to Forbes.
Her fortune as of June 1 was valued at $36.7 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
