Elon Musk says Jeff Bezos takes himself 'too seriously' and needs to work harder

Musk — who was named Time's Person of the Year this week — spoke about Bezos during an interview with the Financial Times published on Wednesday.

Musk said in the interview that while his fellow billionaire has "reasonably good engineering aptitude," he feels Bezos "does not seem to be willing to spend mental energy getting into the details of engineering."

"[He] does take himself a bit too seriously," he added of Bezos. "In some ways, I'm trying to goad him into spending more time at Blue Origin so they make more progress. As a friend of mine says, he should spend more time at Blue Origin and less time in the hot tub."

Musk's comments are just the latest in a 15-year feud between the two centibillionaires, which has intensified amid a growing rivalry between their rocket companies, SpaceX and Blue Origin. "Turns out Besos [sic] retired in order to pursue a full-time job filing lawsuits against SpaceX," Musk tweeted in August. Bezos as Amazon CEO in July.

Musk has repeatedly and publicly called Bezos a "copycat" — once after Amazon announced its plan to launch internet-beaming satellites, and again when Amazon acquired self-driving-taxi company Zoox.

While Bezos has stopped short of calling out Musk directly, he has taken aim at Musk's biggest ambition: colonizing Mars, the main goal of SpaceX. Bezos' focus is on getting humans to the moon, and he's described the idea of reaching Mars as "un-motivating." "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 said in 2019.

Musk may lead the most valuable carmaker on the planet but he doesn't act like it in the traditional sense. Unlike top executives as other firms, Musk regularly tweets out memes, juvenile jokes, and the occasional company update to his 66.5 million followers. He frequently engages with fans online and gets into spats with critics.

Bezos' public image, by comparison, is highly curated. He has3 million followers on Twitter and isn't prone to the same unfiltered musings and casual banter as Musk.