Elon Musk calls for breakup of Amazon

SAN FRANCISCO: Telsa Chief Executive Elon Musk has called for Amazon to be broken up after an author complained on social media about being unable to self-publish a book on the world’s largest online retailer.

“This is insane @JeffBezos,” Musk tweeted at Amazon’s chief. “Time to break up Amazon. Monopolies are wrong!” Musk added in a second tweet.

Both men are billionaires and oversee competing space exploration companies on top of their duties at Telsa and Amazon.

Amazon has not commented on Musk’s call for dissolution but said the book in question, by author Alex Berenson, was blocked in error and was now available for sale on its Kindle e-reading service. Amazon said the decision to allow the book’s sale was not due to Musk.

Musk has a history of being outspoken on the social media platform. In 2018, a tweet that he has secured funding to take Tesla private led to a lawsuit by the US Securities and Exchange Commission which was later settled.

Musk has lashed out at stay-at-home restrictions to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus and also threatened his company factory.

The author Berenson posted on Twitter with a photo of the message sent by Amazon, in which the retailer had taken action because his book did not comply with guidelines. After Amazon approved the book’s sale, he tweeted, “thanks to @elonmusk and everyone who helped.”

The retailer added that it was “referring customers to official sources for health information about the virus.” Berenson’s book is titled, “Unreported Truths about COVID-19 and Lockdowns: Part 1: Introduction and Death Counts and Estimates.”