Silicon Valley billionaires Elon Musk and Vinod Khosla continued their social media spat after Musk had posted a comment about white people, prompting a reaction from Indian-origin Khosla.Musk’s initial post said: “White people are a rapidly diminishing minority of global population.”Khosla responded by accusing Musk of promoting a racial agenda in the US and asked all non-White people to quit Musk’s companies. He wrote: “Elon Musk doesn’t want MAGA, he wants WAGA or ‘white America great again’ as a racism is great and desirable paradigm. All non-whites in Tesla, SpaceX, X etc and all decent whites should quit and join our portfolio. Email us your linkedin!”Musk hit back by saying his partner and son, too, are linked to India, to prove he is not exactly a White supremacist: “Vinod, you’re not just such a pompous a**hole that you tried to stop the public from using a public beach near your house, you’ve also gone full r***d. My partner, Shivon, is half Indian and my eldest son with her is named in honour of the great Indian physicist Chandrasekhar.”Musk’s partner, Shivon Alice Zilis, is a Canadian technology executive and venture capitalist. She was born to a Punjabi Indian mother and a Canadian father. Musk’s eldest son with Zilis carries a name paying tribute to Indian-American scientist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.Khosla later responded by urging Musk to avoid bringing his family into the dispute and to reconsider his public comments on race. He wrote: “Instead of bringing your family into it, maybe try not tweeting ‘SEEMINGLY’ racist stuff next time? Many would appreciate it if you acknowledge you are not trying to establish a white society in America, and are not WAGA, and racism isn’t behind your many laments around white birth rates, declining % of population and many similar laments.”
Khosla then addressed the personal jibe that Elon had launched at him: “As to the beach issue you’d appreciate me standing up to the principle of defending ‘the principal of private property’ instead of giving in to whatever the Coastal Commission wants. EVERY court ruling (in Friends of Martin Beach case including all appeals) so far reaffirms there has NEVER been free access to the beach thru private property, just paid access for parking, though the beach is public property (I’ve never asserted it isn’t). You would appreciate it if you knew the facts. Anything else is communism. Separately, courts have denied my petition to have the right to close the gate because the CCC has not denied me the right to close the gate and wont give me a hearing for years because then they would have to deny my petition and I would have legal recourse. So they just wont give me a hearing date.”However, Khosla praised Musk at the end of his long reply: “Unfortunately I have no proof to refute your claim that I am a pompous asshole and retarded. I have said publicly I do admire your extraordinary entrepreneurial skills.”The beach dispute refers to Khosla’s purchase of land near Martin’s Beach in Half Moon Bay, California, in 2008. He erected a gate on a road that had provided public access to the beach to block visitors. Legal battles followed, with a court ruling that Khosla must allow public access to the beach road. He faced backlash and people accused him of preventing the public from enjoying a shared space. But Khosla defended his actions as protecting private property rights. Khosla is an Indian-American billionaire entrepreneur born in Pune in 1955. He co-founded Sun Microsystems, spent 18 years at Kleiner Perkins, and later founded Khosla Ventures, a Silicon Valley investment firm focused on technology, biotech, energy, and AI. His net worth is over $9 billion.
