Indian-American billionaire Vinod Khosla and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk clashed over their views after US President Joe Biden dropped out of the US Presidential race against Republican rival Donald Trump. Biden has endorsed Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s new nominee.

The nomination of Kamala has started new turmoil ahead of the November 5 election. If elected, Kamala would become America’s first woman president.

Read also: Joe Biden Leaves Presidential Race

Soon after the announcement, Vinod Khosla called for an “open convention” for the Democrats to decide on “a more moderate candidate”.

“Time to have an open convention and get a more moderate candidate who can easily beat @realDonaldTrump. @GovWhitmer and @GovernorShapiro would be a great thing for America not held hostage between MAGA extremists and DEI extremism. Unique opportunity for a better moderate path. Every socially liberal, climate and fiscal voter should want it to balance our approach,” Khosla tweeted.

Time to have an open convention and get a more moderate candidate who can easily beat @realDonaldTrump. @GovWhitmer and @GovernorShapiro would be a great thing for America not held hostage between MAGA extremists and DEI extremism. Unique opportunity for a better moderate path.…

— Vinod Khosla (@vkhosla) July 21, 2024

Elon Musk, CEO of X, Tesla and SpaceX responded to the post urging him to support Trump and his running mate JD Vance. “Come on, Vinod. Trump/Vance LFG!!” Musk wrote.

Commenting back, Mr. Khosla asked whether he would let his children be like the Republican presidential contender and clarified his stance that he would not support someone who “lies, cheats and demeans women”.

“Hard for me to support someone with no values, lies, cheats, rapes, demeans women, hates immigrants like me. He may cut my taxes or reduce some regulation but that is no reason to accept depravity in his personal values. Do you want President who will set back climate by a decade in his first year? Do you want his example for your kids as values?,” Mr Khosla said.

Musk countered Khosla’s point by saying that Trump does not hate Khosla and that his admiration would promote meritocracy and individual freedoms. “He doesn’t hate you. In fact, I think he likes you. Meet him and find out for yourself. How many times have you read something in the media where you know the real story, but what they printed was diabolically false? Well, it’s way worse in politics, which is a blood sport,” Musk wrote.

He further added that Trump is not “without flaws”, and asserted that America needs “an administration that is more likely to be meritocratic and promote individual freedoms over the heavy hand of government. Many years ago, that was the Democratic Party, but now the pendulum has swung to the Republican Party”.

However, Khosla replied by agreeing on the meritocracy and individual freedoms but expressed concern over Trump’s stance on climate change and its impact on American leadership and moral authority.

“Agree on not trusting media. Agree on meritocratic and promote individual freedoms. But abandon climate and ‘drill baby drill’? Be MAGA and abandon NATO and American leadership and moral authority? I was a socially liberal registered fiscal Republican till climate made me switch to Independent (sic),” he said

Later in another post, pointing out the incident of January 6, he asked whether he would be “willing [to] forgive him for trying to subvert democracy on Jan 6 and push for insurrection just to win?”

Read also: President Biden, Bill Clinton, Hillary Endorse Kamala Harris For Democrat Presidential Nominee

Vinod Khosla is a venture capitalist and co-founder of Sun Microsystems. He is known to be a prominent Democratic political donor and has contributed over $1.4 million in the current campaign.