Elon Musk Is Feuding With a Billionaire Over a California Seashore

Skilled troll Elon Musk often leverages his shitposting prowess towards reasonably silly, rightwing ends however, as soon as in nice awhile, he really places his trollish powers to good use. Such was the case this weekend, when the Tesla CEO used his personal web site, X, to go after one other tech billionaire who has been accused of hogging a public seaside in California.

Vinod Khosla, the rich co-founder of Solar Microsystems, has been in a 15-plus-year authorized battle over Martins Beach, a scenic spot alongside the San Mateo Coast. Again in 2008, Khosla purchased up properties surrounding the seaside and later tried to close off public entry to the street that leads right down to the seaside. Extra just lately, he has (typically) left the gate open and charged people to park in a lot near the water. Khosla has been sued a number of occasions by conservation and surfer teams, who accuse him of attempting to privatize a public beach.

On Sunday, Musk tagged Khosla in a tweet that concerned what seems to have been an AI-generated picture of a seaside signal that reads: “No plebs allowed.” It’s not completely clear why Musk determined to do that, though it appears to have had one thing to do with the 2 males’s political variations.

Wow, so loopy that @vkhosla put this signal on a public seaside pic.twitter.com/ln46n07kvw

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 21, 2024

This clearly pissed Khosla off, as a result of he proceeded to go off on Musk in a sequence of tweets. “You owe me an apology for spreading falsehoods,” Khosla posted. “I feel this submit of yours wants a neighborhood remark for being a fraudulent photograph. I’ve by no means put up this signal or something even remotely like this. I presume it’s AI generated however you may confirm that. It’ll assist X if we will have rational debate and never get private (I can throw private truths at you in contrast to your false photograph).”

Musk, ever the asshole, replied: “Sorry I made an indication about you proscribing entry to a public seaside. That was so extraordinarily horrible. Please forgive me.” He appended a prayer emoji to the tweet.

“Vinod says we must always ship tens of hundreds of unvetted migrants to small cities all through America, however he didn’t even wish to let the general public stroll on his seaside… I’m throwing a celebration on Vinod’s seaside,” Musk continued as he slowly misplaced steam. “For delicacies, I’m pondering BBQ.”

Gizmodo reached out to Khosla for remark.

The Mercury Information reports that after shopping for coastal properties surrounding Martins Seashore in 2008, Khosla locked the gate resulting in the general public seaside, employed guards, and posted no trespassing indicators. In 2020, he was sued by California Coastal Fee, a public company, which argued that the general public had a proper to make use of the street that led to the seaside. He has additionally been sued efficiently by a surfing group. In his personal obvious effort to unfold falsehoods, Khosla has referred to the Coastal Fee as a bunch of “commies.”