Vinod Khosla, the Indian-American billionaire and venture capitalist, recently confronted Tesla CEO Elon Musk following Musk’s controversial remarks about race. In a September post, Musk stated that ‘white people are a rapidly diminishing minority of global population,’ which prompted Khosla to accuse him of framing racism as a ‘grate and desirable paradigm.’ This exchange highlights ongoing tensions in discussions surrounding race and societal dynamics within the tech industry.
In 2024, Elon Musk urged Khosla to endorse Donald Trump’s Trump-Vance ticket, which Khosla declined.
On the other hand, Khosla previously dismissed Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI as “a bit of sour grapes.” Khosla escalated the confrontation and urged the employees at Elon Musk’s companies — Tesla, SpaceX and X to quit and join his own portfolio of startups, which includes OpenAI and Replit. Tagging Musk in a post Khosla wrote, “Elon Musk doesn’t want MAGA, he wants WAGA of ‘white America great again’ as a racism is great and desirable’ paradigm. All non-whites in @Tesla, @SpaceX and @X etc and all decent whites should quit and join our portfolio. Email us your LinkedIn! This is not the first time that Tesla CEO Elon Musk and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla had public clash.