Elon Musk rejected ‘hypocrite’ Bill Gates’ attempt to offer him advice on philanthropy and called him an ‘a**hole to the core’, new biography reveals
- The two billionaires have been in a feud since Gates shorted Tesla stock last year
- Musk’s ex-girlfriend Grimes compared it to ‘a little bit of a d**k-measuring contest’
- Musk texted his biographer calling Gates an ‘a**hole to the core’ and ‘categorically insane’
Still fuming over his shorting of Tesla stock last year, Elon Musk rebuffed an attempt by Microsoft founder Bill Gates to offer him philanthropy advice and called him an ‘a**hole to the core’ in a text to his biographer.
The feud began when Gates visited a Tesla plant in Austin, Texas, in March 2022.
Gates had attempted to profit by shorting Tesla stock – predicting the company would go down in value. It was a move that cost him $1.5billion in the end.
Musk, furious that he’d bet against the company when he himself claims to be an eco-warrior, confronted him about it and Gates apologized, but the damage was done.
In a biography of Musk set to be released this coming week, Walter Isaacson writes that in September 2022, Gates spoke to Musk and said he wanted to ‘come see [him] and talk about philanthropy and climate’ at a meeting
Musk gave Gates a tour of his factory in Austin, which impressed Gates but still, the two had much to debate while he visited
‘He was super mean to me,’ he recalled.
Several months later, Gates emailed Musk a list of philanthropic causes to consider.
Musk responded asking if he still retained the short position against Tesla, which Gates did, then rejected the offer to team up.
‘Sorry. I cannot take your philanthropy on climate seriously when you have a massive short position against Tesla, the company doing the most to solve climate change,’ he said.
He sent a text to biographer Walter Isaacson later, calling Gates ‘categorically insane’ and ‘an a**hole to the core’.
‘I did actually want to like him (sigh),’ he wrote.
When Gates first requested the meeting, Musk responded by saying that he didn’t have a scheduler or a personal assistant, telling Gates to have his secretary call him directly.
Gates bypassed his secretary and set the meeting up for March 9, 2022.
Musk gave Gates a tour of his factory in Austin, which impressed Gates but still, the two had much to debate while he visited.
Ultimately, when Isaacson pressed Gates on why he shorted the stock, he simply thought he could make money by doing so, which Isaacson called ‘alien’ to Musk.
‘How can someone say they are passionate about fighting climate change and then do something that reduced the overall investment in the company doing the most?’ Gates asked Isaacson days after Gates’ visit.
‘It’s pure hypocrisy. Why make money on the failure of a sustainable energy car company?’
Grimes, Musk’s ex-girlfriend and the mother of three of his children, called the incident ‘a little bit of a d**k-measuring contest.’
Gates was also critical of Musk’s belief that solar energy could solve climate change and that batteries could ever power semi-trucks.
‘I showed him the numbers,’ Gates said. ‘It’s an area where I clearly knew something that he didn’t.’
Musk dissed Gates’ physique on Twitter posting a photo of the Microsoft mogul alongside Apple’s controversial pregnant man emoji ‘in case you need to kill a boner’. It was after he learned of his short against Tesla
Gates also spoke derisively of Musk’s attempt to colonize Mars.
‘I’m not a Mars person,’ Gates told Isaacson. ‘He’s overboard on Mars. I let him explain his Mars thinking to me, which is kind of bizarre thinking. It’s this crazy thing where maybe there’s a nuclear war on Earth and so the people on Mars are there and they’ll come back down and, you know, be alive after we all kill each other.’
Where the two really feuded was on philanthropy, which Musk said was ‘bulls**t’ and that only 20 cents of every dollar he donated would actually make an impact.
Gates attempted to show him some projects that he’d spent $100million on and seen a great impact.
A low-key feud has been bubbling between the pair, much of it seemingly stemming from the Texas meeting.
Previously, Musk dissed Gates’ physique on Twitter posting a photo of the Microsoft mogul alongside Apple’s controversial pregnant man emoji ‘in case you need to kill a boner.’
Gates, the world’s third richest man after Musk and Jeff Bezos, took a shot earlier this year at the Tesla CEO after the electric vehicle maker announced taking a $1.5 billion stake in Bitcoin.
‘Elon has tons of money and he’s very sophisticated, so I don’t worry that his Bitcoin will sort of randomly go up or down,’ Gates told Bloomberg.
‘I do think people get bought into these manias who may not have as much money to spare, so I’m not bullish on Bitcoin. My general thought would be that if you have less money than Elon, you should probably watch out,’ he said.
Gates has also previously made comments about electric trucks like the Tesla Semi not being viable, which Musk countered.
In an interview on the Joe Rogan Experience, Musk said he believes that the Microsoft founder had a big short position on Tesla stocks at one point.
‘I heard that at one point he had a large short position. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it seems weird,’ Musk told Rogan.
‘People I know who know the situation pretty well, I asked them ‘are you sure?’ and they said ‘yes, he has a huge short position on Tesla.’ That didn’t work out too well.’
The book by Isaacson, set for release Tuesday, features several revelations about Musk.
SpaceX founder Musk and Canadian musician Grimes in 2018
The billionaire CEO of Tesla, X and Space X was accused in the book of cutting off Ukraine’s access to Starlink over the Crimean coast to prevent an attack on the Russian naval fleet.
Responding to the accusation, Musk said that while he did not order engineers to switch off the satellite system, he did refuse Kyiv’s request to turn it on because – he said – he wanted to ‘avoid being complicit in a major act of war.’
The world’s richest man began providing free access to Space X’s Starlink internet terminals in the early days of the Russian invasion in February 2022, which have been vital in allowing Ukrainians to communicate and coordinate their resistance.
But, at the end of last year, his enthusiasm began to wane, and he became increasingly concerned about taking sides – ultimately ordering that the internet be shut down to stop a ‘kamikaze drone’ submarine attack on Russian warships.
In another revelation, Isaacson, who observed Musk through the fraught days of his takeover of Twitter, told a Twitter Spaces event on Thursday that Musk had a ‘maniacal sense of urgency’ that frightened his employees.
The writer, who has also published biographies of Steve Jobs and Leonardo da Vinci, said Musk would often fly into a rage at employees during his early days at Twitter when he fired more than half the workforce.
‘He’d go dark and I’d know that he was just going to rip that person apart,’ Isaacson recalled.
The writer, who has also published biographies of Steve Jobs and Leonardo da Vinci, said Musk would often fly into a rage at employees during his early days at Twitter when he fired more than half the workforce.
‘He’d go dark and I’d know that he was just going to rip that person apart,’ Isaacson recalled.
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