Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Tesla’s Elon Musk are at it again, this time over Covid-19 vaccines, with the SpaceX CEO recently overtaking Gates as the second-richest man in the world
Musk called Gates a ‘knucklehead’ who has ‘no clue’ about electric cars while Gates said he prefers to drive a Porsche and slammed Musk’s comments about the coronavirus pandemic – here’s how the feud started, and how it’s going
Here’s an epic understatement: Bill Gates and Elon Musk don’t exactly see eye to eye.
And now there’s a new layer to their rivalry: Musk surpassed Gates as the world’s second-richest person. His net worth now stands at US$128 billion.
Here’s how the friction between Gates and Musk began and everything that’s happened since.
Gates doesn’t appear to be a fan of Tesla vehicles, and he’s said as much publicly. In February, Gates said during an interview with YouTuber Marques Brownlee that while Tesla had helped to drive innovation and adoption of electric vehicles, he recently bought a Porsche Taycan.
Gates’ comments didn’t get by Musk, who tweeted that his conversations with Gates had always been “underwhelming”. But things really heated up in July when Gates took issue with Musk’s comments on the coronavirus pandemic.
In an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Gates criticised Musk’s comments on the virus and implied that Musk shouldn’t be speaking about the pandemic at all.
“Elon’s positioning is to maintain a high level of outrageous comments,” Gates said. “He’s not much involved in vaccines. He makes a great electric car. And his rockets work well. So he’s allowed to say these things. I hope that he doesn’t confuse areas he’s not involved in too much.”