A Rare Compliment? Bezos Says Musk Is 'Extremely Good' At One SkillThe billionaire took to Twitter to chime in on the potential future of Twitter following Musk's acquisition of the company.

Could this possibly be some sort of peace offering?

Elon MuskandJeff Bezoshave been longstanding rivals, especially when it comes to business dealings like their pursuits ofouter spacevia both of their respective spaceexploration companiesand initiatives.

Upon Musk's highly buzzed aboutofficial acquisitionof Twitter on Monday, many weighed in (ironically) on the social media platform to mull over what may happen now that Twitter is a privately held company.

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"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," Musk proclaimed in acompany statementupon the announcement of his purchase.

This notion of free speech and the longstanding comparison between Twitter being a "town square" lead to curiosity fromNew York TimesreporterMike Forsythewho pointed out that Musk's Tesla is heavily reliant on China for lithium batteries used for the company's EVS and also noted that China was Tesla's second biggest market last year.

Twitter has been banned in China since 2009, which is a detail that prompted Bezos to chime in on a series of Tweets that questioned what Musk's takeover could mean for the country and the social media platform.

"Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage over the town square," BezosTweeted outbefore almost immediately giving his personal opinion on the matter.

"My own answer to this question is probably not," Hequipped. "The more likely outcome in this regard is complexity in China for Tesla, rather than censorship at Twitter."

Related:It's Official: Elon Buys Twitter

But it wasn't Bezos' commentary on China that drew attention — it was his subsequent compliment of his rival Musk.

"We'll see," the Amazon founder wrote in athird Tweet. "Musk is extremely good at navigating this kind of complexity."

Whether that was meant to be sarcastic or not is unclear but it seems as though Bezos may just be tossing Musk a benefit of the doubt.

According toReuters, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Tuesday that there was "no basis to speculation" that the country would have interest in influencing content on the social media platform by leveraging Tesla's dependence on China.

Chinaprovided around$13.8 billion in revenue for Tesla in 2021, more than double its revenue in 2020 which was around $6.7 billion.

Twitterwas downjust shy of 4% in a 24-hour period as of Tuesday afternoon. Teslawas downabout 9.8% in the same period.