Jeff Bezos is setting the record straight.
The Amazon founder and executive chairman took to X on Thursday and accused the prediction platform Polymarket of fabricating a statement attributed to him.
“JUST IN: Jeff Bezos advises aspiring Gen Z entrepreneurs to start at real world jobs like McDonalds or Palantir before starting a business,” read the Polymarket post.
Bezos replied: “Nope. Not sure why polymarket made this up.”
Nope. Not sure why polymarket made this up. 🤷♂️
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) January 22, 2026
It’s not entirely clear where the statement came from. The Polymarket account on X frequently posts aggregated news from around the world, often without citing an original source.
Polymarket did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
What Bezos has actually said about young entrepreneurs and McDonald’s
Bezos did recently speak about about the importance of real-world experience in general.
In an appearance at Italian Tech Week in November, Bezos advised young entrepreneurs to work at a company before starting their own, rather than dropping out of college like other famous founders.
“It is possible to, you know, be 18, 19, 20 years old, drop out of college, and be a great entrepreneur,” Bezos said. “We have famous examples of that working: Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, etcetera. But these people are the exception.”
“I always advise to young people, you know, go work at a best practices company somewhere, where you can learn a lot of basic fundamental things,” Bezos continued. “There’s still lots of time to start a company after you have absorbed it. It increases your odds, in my opinion.”
Bezos also worked his first job at McDonald’s while in high school, and he spoke favorably about the experience in comments that appeared in the 2012 book “Golden Opportunity: Remarkable Careers That Began at McDonald’s.”
“You can learn responsibility in any job, if you take it seriously,” Bezos said. “You learn a lot as a teenager working at McDonald’s. It’s different from what you learn in school. Don’t underestimate the value of that!”
Elon Musk even weighed in, replying to Bezos with a reference toward President Donald Trump’s famous appearance at a McDonald’s during the 2024 presidential campaign, where he worked the fryer and appeared at the drive-thru window.
“Well, the President worked at McDonald’s and now he’s the President,” Musk wrote.
