Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is taking on the grim reaper after he reportedly invested in a startup that is trying to figure out how to reverse the ageing process, according to a report in the MIT Tech Review.

The world's richest man this week threw more money behind an obsession among some billionaires: the quest to defeat aging. Bezos' horse in the race is Altos Labs, a promising young start-up trying to reverse aging by reprogramming human cells.

Altos Labs was founded earlier this year and is luring university scientists with high salaries of $1 million (€844,000) a year or more and allows them free reign to research how cells age and how to reverse the process, the report said.

Making fun of Bezos, Elon musk tweeted "And if it doesn't work, he's gonna sue death!"

But Bezos isn’t the only plutocrat to reportedly invest in the company; Russian-Israeli billionaire Yuri Milner has reportedly invested too.

According to the MIT Tech Review, a securities disclosure filed in California in June indicates the company has raised at least $270 million (€227 million).

The Altos journey to immortality kicked off earlier this year in the United States and the United Kingdom where the company was incorporated. Now, the company wants to set up institutes in uncharted territories including Japan.

According to the New York Post, Jeff Bezos has also invested in a start-up called Unity Biotechnology which is also working to "halt or reverse diseases" of ageing.