Elon Musk calls Jeff Bezos a 'copycat' as Amazon founder announces new $6.2B AI startup

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos has unveiled his most ambitious tech venture since stepping back from Amazon, and of course, Elon Musk had something to say about it. The billionaire has co-founded a new AI startup called Project Prometheus, securing a massive $6.2 billion in funding, including a personal investment. The company plans to build cutting-edge AI tools for engineering and manufacturing — spanning aerospace, automotive and advanced computing.

Project Prometheus already has serious muscle behind it, with nearly 100 employees recruited from Meta, OpenAI and Google DeepMind. The goal: develop specialised AI systems that can accelerate product development, automate industrial processes and fundamentally reshape how large-scale engineering is done.

But the announcement didn’t land quietly. Musk, never one to pass up an opportunity to poke at Bezos, responded on X with a three-word quip: “Haha no way 😂” — followed by a copycat emoji. It’s classic Musk, leaning into the long-standing rivalry between the two tech titans, from rockets to retail to AI. Musk had earlier called Bezos a copycat when the Amazon founder had announced Blue Origin, a rival to Elon Musk's SpaceX.

The scale of Project Prometheus is hard to ignore. Securing billions before even launching its first product signals strong confidence from investors and an aggressive push into a sector currently dominated by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Musk’s own xAI.

Musk’s reaction is likely a hint that the competition between the two will only intensify. With Bezos targeting the industrial side of AI and Musk racing ahead with Grok and xAI’s research ambitions, both appear ready to battle for the next frontier of artificial intelligence.

Whether Musk was amused, unimpressed or simply stirring the pot, one thing is clear — Project Prometheus just became part of the Musk–Bezos rivalry storyline.