Gates took issue with Musk’s behaviour regarding the virus. “Elon’s positioning is to maintain a high level of outrageous comments. I hope that he doesn’t confuse areas he’s not involved in too much,” Gates said on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

The comments struck a nerve with Musk, who taunted Gates on Twitter in response. He jokingly posted multiple tweets about Gates, writing, “Billy G is not my lover” and “The rumour that Bill Gates and I are lovers is completely untrue.”

During a podcast interview with The New York Times in September 2020, Musk defended his role in coronavirus relief efforts. “Gates said something about me not knowing what I was doing,” Musk said. “It’s like, ‘Hey, knucklehead, we actually make the vaccine machines for CureVac, that company you’re invested in.’”

But another major source of tension between Gates and Musk appears to be climate change – specifically, how big of an impact Tesla has in reducing emissions and helping the planet.

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Gates’ comments didn’t get by Musk, who tweeted at the time that his conversations with Gates had always been “underwhelming”.

Musk also took issue with a blog post Gates wrote that questioned whether it was practical to make vehicles like 18-wheelers fully electric. Though he didn’t mention Tesla, the company is developing a semi, and when a Twitter user asked Musk about his opinion of Gates’ comments, Musk replied, “he has no clue”.

Gates has issued Musk a few rare compliments over the years though. During a podcast interview in 2021, Gates said that what Musk has accomplished with Tesla is “one of the greatest contributions to climate change anyone’s ever made” and said that “underestimating Elon is not a good idea”.

But Gates has also touted his own climate contributions over Musk’s. “I give a lot more to climate change than Elon or anyone else,” Gates said during a June 2022 interview with French YouTuber Hugo Décrypte. “I give a lot of philanthropic dollars, I back companies – you know, electric cars are about 16 per cent of emissions, so we also need to solve that other 84 per cent.”

Musk had a one-word response to the interview on Twitter: “Sigh.”

And while space exploration – specifically, colonising Mars – is a main focus of Musk’s, Gates isn’t impressed. During an interview on a New York Times podcast in early 2021, Gates said that while he may be missing something, he’s “not a Mars person. I don’t think rockets are the solution.” He added that he’d rather spend his money on vaccines here on Earth than on space travel.

Though Musk recently said he’s “moving on” from making fun of Gates, he’s done his fair share of mocking the Microsoft founder over the years. He once tweeted an anti-vaccine political cartoon about Gates, and he recently mocked Gates’ weight online.

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Musk has also publicly taken issue with Gates over what he says is Gates’ multimillion-dollar short position against Tesla. Tesla short-sellers have been a frequent target of Musk’s over the years, to the point where he’s argued that the practice should be illegal.

In a leaked text message exchange between the two billionaires, which Musk said is legitimate, Gates seems to confirm that he’s betting against Tesla, but says he’d still like to work on a climate-focused philanthropic opportunity together. “Sorry, but 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,” Musk replied.

Gates recently seemed to imply, during the interview with YouTuber Hugo Décrypte, that the issue is Musk’s, not his. When asked whether they’re friends, Gates replied, “I like him. I think he does great work. I don’t know him very well.”