Jeff Bezos on Saturday rebuked President Biden for blaming gas station companies for skyrocketing prices at the pump — declaring that the commander in chief was either using “deception” or displaying a “deep misunderstanding” of economic fundamentals.
In a Saturday afternoon tweetwrote the official presidential account: “My message to the companies that run gas stations and set prices at the pump is simple: This is a time of war and global danger.”
“Reduce the price you charge at the pump to reflect the cost you pay for the product,” Biden added. “And do it now.”
Later Saturday, the second richest person in the United States took down Biden’s tweet.
“Ow. Inflation is far too important a problem for the White House to continue making statements like this.” posted BezosAmazon’s founder and owner of the Washington Post.
“It’s either a direct deception or a profound misunderstanding of fundamental market dynamics.”
The back and forth comes as Americans paid higher gas prices during the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February and inflation.
On Thursday, Biden told reporters that American car owners will have to pay high gas prices for “as long as it takes” to end the war.
The fuel costs can be even higher.
Gas prices could soar above their current near-record levels to “apocalyptic” highs if the hurricane season causes significant disruptions to US oil refineries, an industry expert warned last month.
Saturday wasn’t the first time the president and an outspoken American billionaire have recently been engaged in a war of words.
In early June, it was revealed that billionaire Elon Musk has such a “bad feeling” about the US economy under President Biden that he plans to lay off about 10% of the employees of Tesla, his electric car company.
Biden responded to Musk’s vision by taking a shot at Musk and his company SpaceX.
“Good luck on his journey to the moon,” Biden said.
That prompted Musk to fire back on Twitter with a link to a 2021 NASA press release about SpaceX winning a $2.89 billion contract to send the next American astronauts to the moon.