Elon Musk compares Bill Gates to pregnant man emoji in Twitter slam

Elon Musk has hit out at Bill Gates in a bizarre Twitter slam, comparing him to the pregnant man emoji.

The Tesla founder created an unflattering side by side comparison of the Microsoft billionaire in one of the most unexpected interactions between two of the richest men in the world.

One picture showed a golden man in a blue shirt holding his pregnant belly, next to Gates posing for a picture also in a blue shirt.

He was in a particularly mean mood, too, with Musk adding the caption: "in case u need to lose a b*ner fast".

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

There was no explanation given for the post, and many social media users took exception to the ‘childish’ tweet.

One wrote: "Did he attack you, though? Just trying to figure out the motivation for the post. And not being overly-sensitive or holier than thou or anything like that. But something about attacking appearance has a high-school-age ‘bully’ kind of feel to it."

Another said: “This is such an unfortunate tweet by someone I otherwise have tremendous respect for.”

Another said: “I thought with all that money and fame you'd have more class.”

Having seen the replies, Musk then tweeted a picture of figures in a huddle, writing: "shadow ban council reviewing tweet …"

Just totally bizarre all round.

It comes after a resurfaced Gates interview about Musk went viral recently, with the Microsoft man previously warning the world about how rich the Tesla boss could become.

The Microsoft founder spoke about the value of cryptocurrencies and the danger of investing too heavily in them, and people are only just cottoning on to the significance of his comments.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.