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Elon Musk praised three major American technology founders. Photo: Bloomberg

Larry Ellison, Larry Page, and Jeff Bezos are three of the smartest people Elon Musk has ever met, he said in a March 17 podcast called “Verdict,” when asked by host, Republican Senator Ted Cruz.

“Larry Ellison is very smart,” Musk said of the Oracle co-founder. “I think he’s one of the smartest people around.”

Next, he mentioned Larry Page, co-founder and former CEO of Google, and finally Jeff Bezos, the man behind Amazon. “Jeff Bezos has done a lot of great and difficult things,” Musk said.

Despite being rivals in the space race for 20 years — with Musk owning SpaceX and Bezos running Blue Origin — Musk still has praise for the Amazon billionaire, saying that intelligence can be measured by a person's achievements.

According to Insider, the fortunes of these three billionaires are plummeting. According to Bloomberg, the net worths of Ellison, Page and Bezos are $169 billion, $149 billion and $218 billion respectively. Musk alone has lost 30% of his fortune in just 10 weeks due to the volatility of Tesla's stock.

In the podcast, Musk also discussed the DOGE office in the White House and federal layoffs, saying the US government is “worse than I thought” but still has room for improvement.

However, this view has faced criticism from some employees and the public, including Steve Wozniak - co-founder of Apple.

Wozniak argues that governments should carefully seek to cut inefficiencies and red tape, “with a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer.”

He also criticized DOGE's mass firing of federal employees, calling it "bullying."

(According to Insider, CNBC)