Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak stabbed fellow tech bro Elon Musk in the back Tuesday by criticizing his plunge into politics and his “sledgehammer” approach to governing.
The longtime entrepreneur, who spent decades alongside Steve Jobs, said Wednesday he believes that Musk’s oversized ego drove him to join the White House, where he’s attempted to puppeteer government agencies.
“Sometimes you get so rich at these big companies, and you’re on top—it goes to your head, and you’re the most incredible person in the world and the brightest and you’re going to dictate what others will do,” 74-year-old Wozniak told CNBC.
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Wozniak, who has a net worth of around $140 million, or 0.04 percent of Musk’s, also took aim at the Tesla billionaire’s role in widespread federal firings under the Department of Energy Efficiency (DOGE).
“Just mass firings... it’s not good for a business to run that way,” he said.
Although “we should long for inefficiencies in government,” he told CNBC, picking apart the issues should be done “more surgically, with a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer.”
DOGE has already thrown thousands of public servants on the streets, impacting employees from the Department of Agriculture to the National Park Service. Many have accused him of being President Donald Trump’s unelected right hand man, especially during his appearance as a “special government employee” during the administration’s first Oval Office meeting.
Wozniak has previously slammed Musk’s leadership, calling him a “cult leader” in 2023 and denouncing his lack of honestly. He thinks he’s now banned from X, the social media platform owned by Musk.
Wozniak, who has Ukrainian heritage, also knocked Musk and Trump for “bullying” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during last week’s so-called “peace talks.” Trump had accused Zelensky of being a “dictator” only days before.
“If you’re in school, the bully is going to force their way on the little guy,” said Wozniak. “I’ve always favored the little guy over the big guy.”
Wozniak hasn’t been able to access his X account for months now, despite not violating any X rules and trying to unfreeze his account.
“Maybe it’s because I was on the wrong side of Elon,” he said. Wozniak’s been publicly critical of the Tesla cars perhaps even more than he’s discredited Musk’s leadership style.
Wozniak’s taken a pretty strong stance against Musk in the recent week, including during a Tuesday speech to other tech execs, reported Forbes. “When you run a business, you look for a consensus and a sharing,” he said. “If half your employees feel one way and half the other way, you negotiate, you compromise.”
Musk’s been a stranger to the aforementioned approach, opting instead to level it all and build a Trump empire from the ashes. His strategy blurs the lines between Silicon Valley and the U.S. government, signaling a new era than previous administrations and leading some leaders to caution Americans against Big Tech’s power grab.
Some companies are “just so big, it’s like they’re ruining our lives,” said Wozniak.
Musk isn’t the only tech giant who’s become buddy-buddy with the president. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel have all maintained ties to the current administration. As a result, Facebook has ended its fact-checking programs, the Bezos-controlled Washington Post has modified its Opinions page, and various conglomerates have stripped diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from their websites.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Elon Musk for comment.
