Elon Musk Claims He Texted Bill Gates About Why He Can’t Take His Stance On Climate Change ‘Seriously’
Elon Musk accused Bill Gates of trying to short Tesla, ‘the company doing the most to solve climate change,’ and turned down the Microsoft founder’s philanthropy, in new leaked text messages.
Elon Musk is accusing Bill Gates of “still” having a “half billion short against” his automotive company, Tesla, and is challenging his climate change beliefs, in an alleged new text exchange between the two men. The Tesla CEO took to Twitter on April 22 to respond to a tweet that contained a screenshot of the supposed text messages and said he heard about BIll’s supposed short against his electric car company through a TED convention.
Yeah, but I didn’t leak it to NYT. They must have got it through friends of friends.
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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 23, 2022
“Yeah, but I didn’t leak it to NYT. They must have got it through friends of friends. 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,” Elon wrote in the tweet.
In the screenshotted text exchange, which was reportedly verified by CNBC, Elon asked Bill, “Do you still have a half billion dollar short position against Tesla?” and he replied, “Sorry to say I haven’t closed it out. I would like to discuss philanthropy possibilities.”
Elon then responded with, “Sorry, I cannot take your philanthropy on climate change seriously when you have a massive short position against Tesla, the company doing the most to solve climate change.”
The reported texts come after Bill spoke with the New York Times last year about Elon and praised him for his contributions to climate change. “It’s important to say that what Elon did with Tesla is one of the greatest contributions to climate change anyone’s ever made. And you know, underestimating Elon is not a good idea,” he said.
The Microsoft founder did add that he also thought Tesla was doing “easy stuff, like passenger cars” and felt they needed to make a greater impact by tackling other industries.
“We’re basically not doing enough on the hard stuff: steel, cement, meat,” he explained. “And sadly, the things people think about — the electricity, passenger cars — are a third of the problem. So we have to work on the two-thirds.”
“If all you pay attention to is those short-term metrics, not the green premiums across the board, then you miss out on what is the longest lead time, which is the hard stuff,” he concluded.
Bill has yet to publicly comment on Elon’s latest tweet about him.