Elon Musk taunts at Volkswagen over Nazi links

Tesla CEO Elon Musk seems to have an on-and-off sweet-and-sour relationship with Volkswagen. In the latest jibe at Volkswagen, Musk has liked and responded to a tweet pointing out that the German automaker had links with Adolf Hitler's government before and during WWII. The post on the social media platform was made by another Twitter user, and Musk liked that. The Twitter user wrote that Volkswagen was founded by the Nazis and Hitler. Musk replied to the post with a crying laughing emoji and a "100" emoji as well. Interestingly, this comes days after Volkswagen Group decided to halt all its paid activities on Twitter, which is currently owned by the Tesla CEO.

Historically, Volkswagen was founded in Germany in 1938 under Adolf Hitler's Nazi government as a state-owned enterprise. After the world war was over, Volkswagen became a pillar of Germany's economic recovery under guidance from the UK government. While it has come a long way since that and has become one of the major global players in the automotive world, history seems to haunt the car brand.

Interestingly, Tesla's CEO has been known to have a frosty relationship with other carmakers as well. He has previously joked that the US electric vehicle manufacturer, which doesn't have a marketing department, gets free publicity from competitors publicly challenging the automaker. However, his relationship with Volkswagen has seen ups and downs. Previously, in an interaction, Musk said that he believes Volkswagen is second only to Tesla in electric vehicle development and progress. Volkswagen's former CEO, Herbert Diess, even invited Musk to one of the VW events.

Despite achieving the early-mover advantage, Elon Musk's Tesla faces stiff competition from Volkswagen regarding electric vehicle sales, especially outside the US. A study by Bloomberg Intelligence even predicted that the German auto giant would dethrone Tesla as the world's biggest electric vehicle manufacturer by 2024.

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