Harry Fletcher
Jun 05, 2022
The Late Late Show with James Corden
Bill Gates and Elon Musk are two of the richest people on the planet, and their public feud has been playing out online for some time now.
Musk previously hit out at Gates in a bizarre slam, comparing him to the pregnant man emoji, while Gates was also criticised by Musk after it was revealed that he is shorting Tesla’s stock.
Gates also expressed doubts over the Tesla CEO’s proposed $44 billion purchase of Twitter, saying the takeover could result in new problems with misinformation.
Now, Gates has spoken about his own philanthropic ventures surrounding climate change, in an apparent dig at Musk.
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When asked about Tesla and Musk, in regard to the ongoing feud between the pair by YouTuber HugoDécrypte, Gates said: "Tesla's not short of capital. Tesla’s done a fantastic job. The cars are great.
\u201c@SawyerMerritt Sigh\u201d— Sawyer Merritt \ud83d\udcc8\ud83d\ude80 (@Sawyer Merritt \ud83d\udcc8\ud83d\ude80) 1654356047
He continued: “I give a lot more money to climate change than Elon, or anyone else. I give lots of philanthropic dollars. I back companies. Electric cars are about 16% of emissions. We need to solve that other 84%.”
Gates added: “He's done a great job, but somebody shorting the stock doesn't slow him down or hurt him in any way."
Musk replied on Twitter, too, simply writing the word “sigh”.
It comes after Musk accused Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates of shorting Tesla earlier this year.
Gates and Musk have been criticising each other onlineGetty
The Tesla CEO admitted that he asked Gates if he was short-selling shares of the electric carmaker. When investors short a stock, they are betting that the price of the asset will fall.
“I heard from multiple people at TED that Gates still had half billion short against Tesla, which is why I asked him, so it’s not exactly top secret,” Musk said in the tweet.
He was responding to a Twitter user’s question on whether a screengrab of a supposed text conversation between the two billionaires was real.
The Tesla chief’s response was: “Yeah, but I didn’t leak it to NYT. They must have got it through friends of friends.”
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