Coronavirus: Elon Musk says Amazon should be ‘broken up’ after it refuses to sell controversial Covid-19 book

SpaceX and Tesla boss breaks Twitter hiatus to tweet at Jeff Bezos

Elon Musk has broken his recent Twitter hiatus to call out fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos over Amazon's decision to ban a controversial book about the coronavirus.

The SpaceX and Tesla boss tweeted in response to a screenshot posted by the author of the self-published e-book, titled 'Unreported truths about Covid-19 and lockdowns', which showed a message from Amazon's content review department.

The message stated: "Your book does not comply with our guidelines. As a result we are not offering your book for sale."

Replying to the author's tweet, Mr Musk wrote: "This is insane @JeffBezos."

Shortly after, he tweeted: "Time to break up Amazon. Monopolies are wrong!"

The tweets come just two days after he said he was quitting Twitter "for a while".

Amazon has since reversed its decision to block the sale of the 6,400-word book, which questions the reported health risks associated with the Covid-19 coronavirus and criticises government decisions to enforce lockdowns.

The e-commerce giant sent author Alex Berenson an email on Thursday that both the e-book and paperback copies would be sold through the site.

Mr Berenson credited Mr Musk for Amazon's decision to reverse the ban, tweeting: "Thanks to @elonmusk and everyone who helped."

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment but a spokesperson told Reuters that the book had been blocked "in error".

The spokesperson also said that the decision to reverse the ban was not as a result of Mr Musk's tweets.