Prominent Indian-American businessman Vinod Khosla and billionaire Elon Musk had a public war of words over a land battle in California and an allegedly altered image of a sign on a beach. It all started after Elon Musk posted a seemingly AI-generated picture of a beach sign that read “No plebs allowed. Property of Vinod Khosla” – a reference to a 16-year-long legal battle Mr Khosla has undertaken to restrict the use of his private property to access the public Martins Beach, Forbes reported.
Sharing the image on X on Saturday, Mr Musk claimed that Mr Khosla had put it up on his property. However, the billionaire venture capitalist vehemently denied putting up any such sign and demanded an apology from Mr Musk after his “lie” resulted in negative press for him. “You owe me an apology for spreading falsehoods. I think this post of yours needs a community comment for being a fraudulent photo. I have never put up this sign or anything even remotely like this. I presume it is AI generated but you can verify that,” wrote Mr Khosla.
Mr Musk then responded to Mr Khosla in his trademark style. “Sorry, I made a sign about you restricting access to a public beach. That was so extremely terrible. Please forgive me,” the billionaire wrote.
Notably, according to Forbes, Mr Khosla bought a piece of land in 2008 that previously served as a paid parking lot for Martins Beach south of San Francisco. Mr Khosla has said he no longer wants the privately owned property to be publicly accessible and has been battling with the state over the issue for almost two decades, including a rejected appeal to the Supreme Court in 2018.
Elon Musk, however, used this issue to fuel a longstanding dispute between the pair that has seen them trade barbs over the 2024 election, the development of artificial intelligence and immigration issues.
Previously, the two have also publicly argued about ChatGPT parent OpenAI. Mr Khosla has also called a conversation between Mr Musk and Donald Trump “dumb”. Mr Musk, on the other hand, claimed Mr Khosla was “deranged about Trump”. The billionaires even sparred on X over Mr Trump’s false claims about Haitian immigrants.
