Musk resurfaced a decades-old controversy about Xavier Niel’s past after the French billionaire jokingly called him a “dick.”
PARIS — An unlikely feud between Elon Musk and French tech billionaire Xavier Niel escalated Monday evening when the Tesla CEO clapped back after being called a « dick. »
« This guy was sent to prison for being a literal pimp with a cadre of prostitutes, » Musk wrote on X in response to a clip of Niel calling him « the world’s greatest entrepreneur and, on the top of that, a very complex guy… maybe sometimes a dick [un connard]. »
Musk was likely referring to Niel’s 2004 legal troubles, when he was placed under formal investigation and temporarily detained by police during a probe into « aggravated procurement » charges, as reported by several French outlets, linked to his own part ownership of peep show venues at the time.
Niel was later cleared on those charges but received a suspended prison sentence for embezzling funds in some of his X-rated businesses. He is more widely known as the founder of the low-cost mobile provider Free.
Niel appeared to take Musk’s comment in jest.
The back-and-forth between the two tech bros comes amid a major artificial intelligence summit being held in Paris. Niel was among the entrepreneurs French President Emmanuel Macron consulted ahead of the summit and before announcing a privately-funded €109 billion AI strategy. Of that sum, €3 billion comes from Niel’s company, Iliad.
Musk skipped the summit, claiming that he was « in the middle of critical work in Washington DC » while opening the door to participating in the event remotely. Meanwhile, the X owner launched an unsolicited $97.4 billion bid to buy the nonprofit that runs the ChatGPT AI chatbot, OpenAI. The offer was rejected by founder Sam Altman.
