Elon Musk took a swipe at billionaire rival Jeff Bezos over Amazon’s much-anticipated debut of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” declaring author J.R.R. Tolkien was “turning in his grave.”
“Almost every male character so far is a coward, a jerk or both,” the Tesla CEO tweeted to his 105 million followers on Monday.
“Only Galadriel is brave, smart and nice,” Musk added, referring to the elven princess played by actress Morfydd Clark, the younger version of the character made famous by Cate Blanchett.
The first two episodes premiered on Amazon Prime Video on Friday and drew 25 million viewers worldwide, leading Bezos to tout the massive debut.
Some 1.8 million US households tuned in to the premiere of the first episode within the first three days of its rollout while another 1.3 million watched the second episode, making it the highest debut of any show on Amazon Prime, according to the analytics firm Samba TV.
“Go Middle-earth!” Bezos wrote in a tweet hailing the large viewership.
Last week, Bezos made a surprise appearance at the global premiere of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” in London.
The 58-year-old Bezos arrived on the red carpet arm in arm with his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez.
His attendance at the showing of the first two episodes was seen as a signal of how invested Amazon, which reportedly spent some $1 billion producing the series, is in its success.
The Seattle-based e-commerce giant has also forayed into streaming with its Amazon Prime Video offering. The “Rings of Power” rollout pits Amazon against the likes of Netflix and HBO.
Musk is known to devour science fiction and fantasy books, including Tolkien’s seminal series.
In 2009, he told The New Yorker that when he was a young boy growing up in South Africa, he would read books to combat loneliness.
“The heroes of the books I read, ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and the ‘Foundation’ series, always felt a duty to save the world,” Musk said.
Musk and Bezos have a history of locking horns. The two men are in fierce competition to grab market share in the emerging space tourism and exploration industry.
Last year, NASA picked Musk’s outfit, SpaceX, to build a lunar lander system to transport astronauts to the moon — prompting the company’s main competitor, Bezos’ Blue Origin, to file a lawsuit.
Blue Origin is also aiming to develop its own satellite internet service that will compete with SpaceX’s Starlink — which led Musk to accuse Bezos of being a “copycat.”
Bezos’ space company has also tried to stop SpaceX from building a second-generation Starlink satellite network.
Last year, when Musk surpassed Bezos as the world’s richest person, he mockingly declared that he would send the Amazon founder a silver medal.
Musk is currently the world’s richest person with a net worth of $219 billion. Bezos is the second-richest with a fortune valued by Forbes at $171 billion.
