What do billionaires think of each other? Elon Musk Said He’s Not Warren Buffett’s ‘Biggest Fan’ And Finds His Job ‘Super Boring’. But they still respect each other very much, Elon Musk  really wants Warren Buffett to invest in Tesla.

Elon Musk vs. Warren Buffett: Throwing Shade, Seeking Checks

If Elon Musk ever decided to write a self-help book, the first chapter might just be called “Insult First, Pitch Later.” Because when it comes to Warren Buffett, Musk pulls no punches—he’s made it clear he’s not a fan of the “sit and read reports all day” lifestyle. Still, he wouldn’t mind if Buffett wrote Tesla a massive check.

The saga began in 2020, when Musk dropped by “The Joe Rogan Experience” and didn’t hesitate to roast Buffett’s daily routine. “To be totally frank, I’m not his biggest fan,” Musk said. “He does a lot of capital allocation. He reads a lot of annual reports and all the accounting—and it’s pretty boring, really.”

Musk wasn’t done. He took a swing at the entire finance and legal industries in the same breath, saying, “We should have fewer people doing law and fewer people doing finance, and more people making stuff.”

Later that year, Musk doubled down in a New York Times interview with Maureen Dowd. When asked if “Warren Buffett is overrated,” Musk just laughed. “Hahaha. Um, I think he has managed to create a great image for himself as a kindly grandfather, which is maybe overstating the case.”

Fast forward to 2021, when Musk was named Time’s Person of the Year. Once again, he couldn’t resist another jab: “I’m not Warren Buffett’s biggest fan, frankly. He sits there and reads all these annual reports, which are super boring. Does anybody want that job? I think most people do not. I don’t want that job.”

Yet, despite all the teasing, Musk did admit Buffett brings value to the table. “He’s not engaged in insane, conspicuous consumption. So you have to say, ‘Sure, he’s got a high net worth, but he’s doing a useful job for the economy, and he’s very skilled at it and should probably keep doing it.’”

Musk’s Buffett commentary isn’t new. It dates back to Tesla’s 2018 earnings call, when Musk poked fun at Buffett’s famous “moat” investment philosophy—the idea that companies should build durable competitive advantages. “First of all, I think moats are lame,” Musk declared. “They’re nice in a sort of quaint, vestigial way. But if your only defense against invading armies is a moat, you will not last long. What matters is the pace of innovation.”

Buffett, of course, didn’t take the bait. At the 2018 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting, he responded with his trademark calm—and a touch of candy-coated sarcasm: “Certainly you should be working on improving your own moat and defending your own moat all the time. And Elon may turn things upside down in some areas. I don’t think he’d want to take us on in candy.”

Despite all the jabs, Musk still wants Buffett to do what he does best: invest. “He should take a position in Tesla. It’s an obvious move,” Musk posted on X last year, after a user suggested Berkshire Hathaway ditch its $135 billion Apple stake and go all-in on Tesla.

The timing was interesting—Buffett had just revealed Berkshire trimmed its Apple position by about 10%. Historically, Buffett and the late Charlie Munger have been skeptical of the auto industry, calling it capital-intensive and brutally competitive. But they weren’t entirely closed off to EVs—Berkshire has held a stake in Chinese EV giant BYD since 2008.

Musk, however, seems to have a long memory. In a February 2022 X post, he recalled a 2009 lunch with Munger. “I was at a lunch with Munger in 2009 where he told the whole table all the ways Tesla would fail,” Musk wrote. “Made me quite sad, but I told him I agreed with all those reasons and that we would probably die, but it was worth trying anyway.”

So, to sum it up: Musk thinks Buffett’s job is painfully boring, his investment philosophy is outdated, and he’s not his “biggest fan”—but he’d still love to have Buffett’s backing. If nothing else, Musk has mastered the art of keeping his frenemies close…and maybe within investing range.