Amazon boss Jeff Bezos has been criticized for his response to a linguistics professor's tweet calling for Queen Elizabeth II to "die in agony."
Bezos, who is worth $153 billion, got into a Twitter fight with Carnegie Mellon linguistics professor Uju Anya after she described the late queen as the monarch of a "thieving raping genocidal empire."
The Amazon founder, 58, did not like Anya's series of tweets and publicly chided her.
"This is someone supposedly working to make the world better? I don't think so. Wow," Bezos tweeted in response.
But Anya did not back down and replied: "May everyone you and your merciless greed have harmed in this world remember you as fondly as I remember my colonizers."
She also wrote in the eponymous language of the Igbo ethnic people in Nigeria, "Otoro gba gbue gi," which roughly translates to, "May you die of an uncontrollable running stomach."
Hundreds of people rushed to support the professor, arguing that those from countries colonized by the British should not be lectured on how to react to Queen Elizabeth II's death.
"if jeff bezos is appalled by twitter's reaction to the death of queen elizabeth just wait till jeff bezos sees twitter's reaction to the death of jeff bezos," wrote one person on Twitter.
Another tweeted: "it's INSANE that jeff bezos tweets with us. a billionaire who blatantly and violently exploits workers and feels comfortable trying to have a morality battle on the bird app?"
A third Twitter user wrote: "I stand with Uju Anya. What Jeff Bezos did was absolute trash. It is the audacity to think that he can contribute to this conversation and attack her. Wtf?"
And a fourth wrote: "The world gave Jeff Bezos so much power that he can bully someone expressing their feelings about a monarch's death whilst running SlaveCorp 2022. Incredible."
The original tweet to which Bezos responded was removed by Twitter for violating its community policies, but one where Anya responded to her critics remained online.
"If anyone expects me to express anything but disdain for the monarch who supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family and the consequences of which those alive today are still trying to overcome, you can keep wishing upon a star," Anya wrote.
Twitter also removed the following tweet from Anya: "That wretched woman and her bloodthirsty throne have f***** generations of my ancestors on both sides of the family, and she supervised a government that sponsored the genocide my parents and siblings survived. May she die in agony."
Anya was referring to the British Empire's violent conquest of her native Nigeria and its military occupation of South Africa in the late 19th century.
It also referenced more recent conquests during Elizabeth's reign, including the killing and torture of thousands of Kenyans in the country's occupation by British forces from 1952 to 1960.
More recently was the Nigerian Civil War, or Biafran War, which was spurred by ethnic divisions within the country at the close of British colonial rule in 1960.
Britain supplied significant munitions to the Nigerian government to maintain the flow of oil from the country, and was reportedly involved in the hiring of mercenaries to fight on the side of the government.
Queen Elizabeth II died Thursday aged 96—bringing to an end the era of Britain's longest-reigning monarch.
Buckingham Palace said in a statement: "The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon.
"The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow."
Her oldest son has become King Charles III and his wife, Camilla, the queen consort.
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