As the new “Lord of the Rings” series releases on the streaming platform Amazon Prime Video, billionaire and Tesla owner Elon Musk declared his dislike of the adaptation on Tuesday, igniting bizarre Twitter spats with two prominent figures on the platform.
The new “Lord of the Rings” spinoff series, entitled “The Rings of Power,” debuted this week to over 25 million viewers for its first two episodes, making it the highest-rated debut on the Amazon Prime Video platform since its inception, according to the New York Post.
Despite the high-rated debut, billionaire Elon Musk pushed out a hot take on the series on his Twitter, criticizing the male characters for what he perceives as “jerk”-like behavior from them.
“Almost every male character so far is a coward, a jerk or both. Only Galadriel is brave, smart and nice,” he tweeted.
Though Musk is known to be a voracious reader of science fiction and fantasy novels like “Lord of the Rings” and the “Foundation” series, many are looking into his criticism of the series as an implicit dig against fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos, whose Blue Origin he considers a competitor to SpaceX in the private space tourism and exploration industry.
Bezos’s company Amazon has reportedly invested over US$1 billion on the “Lord of the Rings” series, and he himself has expressed happiness at the high ratings of the first two episodes online, tweeting out “Go Middle-earth!” once the ratings of the series came in.
Jeff Bezos has not responded to the criticism publicly posted by the Tesla mogul.
Beyond Musk, beloved fantasy writer Neil Gaiman also weighed in on the issue after a fan tweeted a question to him regarding his opinion on Musk’s take on the series, the New York Daily News reported.
“Elon Musk doesn’t come to me for advice on how to fail to buy Twitter, and I don’t go to him for film, TV or literature criticism,” Gaiman tweeted.
His tweet appears to reference the US$44 billion attempted buyout of Twitter that Musk initiated in April of this year, and which has been in limbo since Musk attempted to terminate the deal due to, among other things, “extreme, egregious deficiencies” on the site’s policies on privacy and moderation, according to CNBC.
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