By Cristian Bustos. Originally published at ValueWalk.
DeFiance Media, an American outlet dedicated to culture, finance, and technology disclosed a series of private messages between Elon Musk and Bill Gates in which the former accuses the latter of betting against Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) in the stock market.
Conversation
The color of the text message boxes suggests they were taken from Musk’s phone, as reported by CNBC. However, it was the @WholeMarsBlog account, dedicated to mixing information with comedy, that tagged the Tesla CEO with the messages and asked if they were real.
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Musk replied the messages were real but assured he had not filtered them, but that they must have come out “through friends of friends.” Gates, whose style is to answer through statements in press interviews, for the moment, has remained silent.
The first screenshot shows a message sent by Gates in which he confirms a date and time for a supposed meeting. To which Musk replies with “great.” The conversation continues with the Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) founder saying that he “just landed” to which he receives another “great.”
The Scuffle In Private
Musk then attacks with another message in which he asks Gates: “Do you still have a short position of 500 million dollars against Tesla?”
Gates replies, “I’m sorry to say I haven’t closed it” and adds later, “I would like to discuss the possibilities of philanthropy,” which does not go down very well.
Musk takes the opportunity to end the conversation with: “I’m sorry, but I can’t take your philanthropy on climate change seriously when you have a massive short position against Tesla, the company that is doing the most to solve climate change.”
It is not clear from the screenshots when this exchange between the heavyweights took place. The last time anything was known about the matter was in February 2021 when Musk said on the controversial Joe Rogan’s podcast that he suspected Gates was betting against Tesla.
Elon Musk and Bill Gates have been criticizing each other for several years for various reasons. Differences over the pandemic, the efficacy of vaccines, or electric vehicles have pitted the world’s richest man against the fourth in a dragging fracas.
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