Marc Piasecki/Getty Images, Taylor Hill/Getty Images
- Vinod Khosla on Sunday urged Democrats to select a moderate candidate against Trump.
- Elon Musk pushed back in defense of Trump, sparking a heated exchange with Khosla on X.
- Khosla suggested Kamala Harris and Governors Whitmer, Shapiro, and Beshear as potential candidates.
Shortly after President Joe Biden withdrew his candidacy from the 2024 presidential race, Vinod Khosla, a venture capitalist and OpenAI investor, posted on X that the Democratic Party should select a moderate candidate to defeat former president Donald Trump.
Khosla first posted that an open convention could yield a candidate who could "easily" beat Trump, such as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer or Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro — in a later post, he also called on Vice President Kamala Harris or Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear to declare their candidacy. He noted these politicians could lead the US without the nation being "held hostage between MAGA extremists and DEI extremism."
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, was not impressed.
"Come on, Vinod. Trump/Vance LFG!!" he replied.
Musk, who fully endorsed Donald Trump last Saturday after the shooting at a Trump rally, has been praised by the former president as a "brilliant guy" — despite Trump saying he hadn't heard about Musk's reported plan of donating $45 million each month to a pro-Trump super PAC.
Khosla is a Democratic donor who hosted a fundraiser for Biden in May and previously endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016. He snapped back, noting it would be hard to support Trump.
"Hard for me to support someone with no values, lies, cheats, rapes, demeans women, hates immigrants like me," Khosla replied. "He may cut my taxes or reduce some regulation but that is no reason to accept depravity in his personal values. Do you want President who will set back climate by a decade in his first year? Do you want his example for your kids as values?"
The two tech leaders exchanged more messages. Musk said the Republican Party has replaced the Democratic Party as the party protecting people's freedoms.
"I'm not suggesting that Trump is without flaws, however we need an administration that is more likely to be meritocratic and promote individual freedoms over the heavy hand of government," Musk wrote.
Though Khosla agreed with Musk's comment on meritocracy and individual freedoms, he took issue with Trump's stances on climate and America's global leadership.
Khosla continued to post throughout the afternoon, asserting his views on the climate crisis, advocating for ranked-choice voting, and stressing the importance of "values and morals" in the age of AI acceleration.
In another post, Khosla tagged Musk, asking if he would be "willing forgive him for trying to subvert democracy on Jan 6 and push for insurrection just to win?"
Musk did not reply to that post.
Khosla added later in the evening that he couldn't agree with Trump's energy policy of "drill, baby, drill" and abandoning the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Musk responded that "civilization does need oil & gas for quite some," a notable response from the chief executive of an electric vehicle company who once said climate change is one of humanity's greatest existential threats.
"I don't think we should demonize an industry that is essential for humanity to function," Musk wrote. "However, as you know, sustainable energy production and consumption is growing very rapidly and is tracking to exceed use of hydrocarbon fuels. That will happen no matter what Trump does."
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has not publicly shared his thoughts about Biden's decision.
Musk touted how some White House aides learned about Biden dropping out by reading X. The platform estimated Biden's announcement got over 289 million views by Sunday night. He also noted on X that his "smartest friends," including lifelong Democrats, "are excited about Trump/Vance."
Yann LeCun, Meta's chief AI scientist, replied, "Your smartest friends aren't very smart."