Why did Indian American businessman Vinod Khosla clash with Elon Musk, know what is the dispute?

Elon Musk-Vinod Khosla California land dispute: Indian-American businessman Vinod Khosla and billionaire Elon Musk have been involved in a heated exchange on social media over a land dispute on a beach in California and an allegedly morphed photo. The controversy began when Musk posted a photo showing a board on the beach that read, “No Plebs Allowed. Property of Vinod Khosla”.

The photo was a reference to a 16-year-long legal dispute in which Khosla allegedly tried to restrict public access to the public Martins Beach.

Musk’s claim and Khosla’s response

On Saturday, September 21, Musk shared this picture on X (formerly Twitter) and claimed that Khosla had installed this board on his private property. In response, Vinod Khosla called Musk’s claim false and demanded an apology from him. Khosla wrote, “You should apologize to me because you have spread lies. I think there should be community comment on this post of yours because this picture is fake. I have never installed such a board. I think it is AI generated, but you can check it.”

Musk then responded in his usual style, writing, “Sorry, I made a signboard showing you restricting access to a public beach. That was extremely bad. Please forgive me.”

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 assume it is AI generated but you can verify that. It will help https://t.co/5PVE8uxDpH

— Vinod Khosla (@vkhosla) September 22, 2024

Khosla’s old background of land dispute

According to Forbes, in 2008 Vinod Khosla bought a piece of land adjoining Martin’s Beach, located south of San Francisco, which was earlier a paid parking lot. Khosla has decided not to make this private property available to the public and has been fighting a legal battle with the state for almost two decades. In 2018, the Supreme Court also rejected his appeal.

Apart from this issue, Elon Musk and Vinod Khosla have also had differences over the 2024 elections, the development of artificial intelligence and immigration issues. Earlier, the two also had a debate over ChatGPT’s parent company OpenAI. Khosla had called a conversation between Musk and Donald Trump ‘stupid’, while Musk had described Khosla as “confused about Trump”.

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