The reaction has been overwhelming since Elon Musk late Monday received approval for his Twitter offer of $54.20 per. shares, the equivalent of about $44 billion.

Amazon founder and second-richest person in the world after Musk, Jeff Bezos, according to CNBC was quick with a tweet in which he pointed out that China may be in a position to influence Twitter as soon as trading is over.

“Did the Chinese government just acquire the ‘square’ as a pressure tool?” Bezos wrote, referring to Musk’s earlier promise to make Twitter a “digital box” where users can talk and debate freely.

Relations to China

Of course, the billionaire is also referring to Musk’s ties to China, through the giant Tesla factory that opened in Shanghai in 2018. The electric carmaker relies heavily on Chinese companies that supply materials that make up Tesla’s car batteries.

At the same time, Twitter is banned in China. The website points out that Beijing’s so-called “big firewall” denies access to a number of Western social media giants, including Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

“My own answer to this question is probably no. The most likely outcome in this case is complexity in China for Tesla rather than censorship on Twitter. (…) But we’ll see. Musk is very good at navigating this type of complexity,” Bezos continued.

Kamphaner

Bezos’ latest work is a new chapter in the longstanding feud between the world’s two richest men over their ambitions in outer space. Musk is the top manager of SpaceX, while Bezos has his own space company at Blue Origin.

The Twitter acquisition has raised concerns from some politicians and commentators who believe Musk will have too much control over the exchange of words on the internet.

But billionaires owning media companies are nothing new, as Bezos himself is the owner of the Washington Post and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff bought Time Magazine in 2018.