Elon Musk and Warren Buffett are fighting about moats and candy. This is serious.

No really. It is!

Elon Musk and Warren Buffett.
(Image credit: Illustrated | AP Photo/Stephan Savoia, AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

Elon Musk and Warren Buffett are fighting over moats and candy. And strange as that may sound, there's a lesson about American innovation and investment hiding in the kerfuffle.

The tetchy back-and-forth began last week. Following Tesla's earnings report, Musk did his duty as CEO and took a conference call with analysts. He got remarkably cantankerous. Tesla's latest electric car model is giving the company headaches, and it's burning through cash very quickly. An annoyed Musk spent much of the call swatting down legitimate questions as "boneheaded" and "dry."

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Jeff Spross

Jeff Spross was the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He was previously a reporter at ThinkProgress.