I Contribute a Significantly Greater Amount to Climate Change Than Elon Musk. The feud between Bill Gates and Elon Musk has resurfaced.
After Gates' interview with a French news site went viral, the two billionaires went at it.
Thursday, June 9, 2022 | Chimniii Desk
Elon Musk and Bill Gates' long-running dispute erupted again over the weekend when Gates chastised his fellow billionaire over who had donated more to climate change.
Gates spoke up on the ongoing feud and Musk's previous comments about how Gates' claims to care about the environment aren't backed up by action in an interview with French journalist Hugo Decrypte.
"Tesla has done an incredible job; I devote a lot more money to climate change than Elon Musk or anyone else," Gates told the Youtuber. "[Elon's] done an excellent job, but a stock shorting doesn't slow him down or harm him in any way."
Tesla shareholder Sawyer Merritt shared a clip of the interview on Twitter, tagging Musk and adding the comment "Ya... Ok," which elicited a simple, one-word reaction from Musk.
The feud began at the end of April, when texts between the two men were leaked to the New York Times and then posted on Twitter, showing Gates requesting Musk to collaborate on charity initiatives to tackle climate change.
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However, once Gates was accused of shorting Tesla stock, Musk refused to collaborate with the billionaire on the project.
"Sorry, but I can't take your climate change philanthropy seriously when you have a big short position on Tesla, the company doing the most to address climate change," Musk remarked in a text message.
Even though he didn't initially release the texts to the NYT, Tesla CEO Elon Musk verified that they were real on Twitter, adding that Gates' shorting Tesla by a "half billion" wasn't "quite top secret."
When asked about Musk's proposed $44 billion purchase of Twitter, Gates seemed to endorse the billionaire in an interview with TODAY just a few weeks later.
"You don't want to bet against Elon. In speaking with Savannah Guthrie, Gates said, "What he did at Tesla is remarkable, helping with climate change, what he did at SpaceX." "Will he make that progress this time?" Should there be rules that strike a better balance between free expression and people being confused by conspiracy theories? Elon believes he can make Twitter better. I'm not sure.
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However, Musk's bid appears to be on hold indefinitely after an amendment to an SEC filing on his behalf revealed that the Tesla CEO believes Twitter is still "actively resisting" his request for data on how many Twitter accounts are bots or spam accounts, calling such resistance a "clear material breach of Twitter's obligations under the merger agreement."
According to Musk, this gives him the "right not to consummate the acquisition" as well as the "right to terminate the merger agreement."
Gates has remained silent about the status of the deal.
By early Monday afternoon, Twitter had lost almost 1.5 percent in a 24-hour span.
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