Elon Musk says Steve Jobs was ‘kind of a jerk’ when they first met at a party in ‘super rude’ interaction
Never meet your heroes...
Featured Image Credit: Marc Piasecki / Contributor / David Paul Morris / Stringer / Getty
While today’s world of 'tech bros' is remembered for the likes of Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sam Altman, many see Steve Jobs as one of the founding fathers of the modern movement.
Tim Cook has taken over as CEO of Apple to steer that ship into a new era, but despite Jobs' tragic passing in 2011, he's still left a massive mark on the tech world. It doesn't even feel like it was too long ago that Steve Jobs revealed the first iPhone in 2007.
Alongside Jobs' legacy as a formidable CEO, there are plenty of stories from over the years - like his brutal email to the then-CEO of Adobe. Elon Musk also shared his own horror story about Steve Jobs, saying that his hero was 'kind of a jerk' when they first met.
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Speaking in a 2015 interview with the German newspaper Handelsblatt, Musk didn't hold back when he fired several shots at Apple and accused the fellow tech giant of hiring former Tesla employees: "They have hired people we've fired. We always jokingly call Apple the ‘Tesla Graveyard.' If you don't make it at Tesla, you work at Apple. I'm not kidding."
As for that fabled first meeting between Jobs and Musk, the latter explained to GQ the same year how they didn't hit it off: "[The] one time I met Steve Jobs, he was kind of a jerk."
The pair were introduced by Google's Larry Page, with Musk saying that everyone he knows who met Jobs said the same thing about him.
Although he didn't go into more detail about what happened, he at least qualified: "I mean, I can't say beyond my personal experience. That is the only experience that I had." Reiterating that he wouldn't discuss it further, he concluded: "The last thing I need is to generate animosity, you know. It just is not helpful."
Musk said that he didn't think it was his own fault in a different interview, expanding: "He's certainly someone I've admired a lot. I did try to talk to him once at a party and he was super rude to me."
"He obviously was an incredible guy and made fantastic products that you know. I know there was a certain guy who had a certain magic about him...that was really inspiring, so I mean, I think that's really great."
Even if Jobs and Musk didn't hit it off, it's clear there's still respect for the late Apple CEO. Considering Musk and Jeff Bezos have had some pretty public sparring since a reported falling out in 2004, it all sounds like the perfect backdrop for a tech-themed season of Ryan Murphy's Feud.