New Delhi: Vinod Khosla, the Indian-American venture capitalist who co-founded Sun Microsystems and runs Khosla Ventures, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk traded barbs Tuesday after Khosla pulled an old Musk tweek back into the spotlight and urged employees to defect.
Khosla reposted a September 2025 tweet from Musk—“White people are a rapidly diminishing minority of global population”—and criticised it as evidence that Musk favours a “WAGA” or “white America great again” outlook rather than MAGA, adding an open call for “non-white” and “decent white” staff at Tesla, SpaceX and X to quit and “join our portfolio.”
Musk responded by calling Khosla a “pompous a*****e”, accusing him of previously trying to block public access to a beach near his property, and saying that his partner, Shivon, is half Indian and that his eldest son’s name honours the Indian physicist Chandrasekhar.
Vinod, you’re not just such a pompous asshole that you tried to stop the public from using a public beach near your house, you’ve also gone full retard.
My partner, Shivon, is half Indian and my eldest son with her is named in honor of the great Indian physicist Chandrasekhar.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 27, 2026
The exchange drew more than 2.4 million views on X. Musk’s reference to a beach dispute points to a long legal fight over Martins Beach, where Khosla’s attempts to restrict access drew court challenges and public criticism.
Wow, so crazy that @vkhosla put this sign on a public beach pic.twitter.com/ln46n07kvw
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 21, 2024
Both figures have had a history of public rows. In early 2024, Khosla criticised Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI—which the latter filed alleging the company had strayed from its original mission — calling the legal action “a bit of sour grapes” and suggesting Musk was motivated by regret over not staying involved with the company.
In 2024, Musk reignited the long-running Martins Beach controversy by posting what he said was a sign reading ‘No plebs allowed’ at the beach road near Khosla’s property—an image Khosla said was AI-generated and false. The back-and-forth spilled across X as Khosla demanded an apology over the misleading post, and Musk issued a sarcastic rejoinder.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
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