Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Microsoft founder Bill Gates don’t like each other just because they both have assets in the three-digit billion range. In fact, for a long time it seemed they were more likely to share dislikes. Instead of a Tesla, Gates Bought a Porsche Taycan in 2020, and Musk said his conversation with him was disappointing. In early 2021, Gates also appeared to be betting against Tesla stock by short selling. Still, the two now apparently wanted to meet at a conference to talk about philanthropy — but according to Musk, Gates confirmed the petty speculation a while back, which is why it came to nothing.

Gates bets $500m against Tesla

It stands out, in a somewhat complicated way, from a text message exchange published on Twitter by user @WholeMarsBlog on Saturday night. He’s in touch with Musk and Sometimes appears as a mouthpiece of sorts for Tesla. for understanding. Gates “apparently” wanted to talk to Musk about philanthropy projects, but Musk canceled, wrote @WholeMarsBlog. He doesn’t know if it’s true.

He did not identify the source of the screenshots of the text messages issued with this statement, but Musk then wrote that they were authentic. According to it, the exchange began with a message “Wednesday 720 to be exact” from a sender named Bill with the BG logo, followed by the reply “Great.” BG later reported that he had just landed, to which Musk apparently replied “cool”. A day later, however, he asked in the evening whether the recipient still had a half-billion dollar short position against Tesla, to which he replied in the affirmative the next morning. “I want to talk about philanthropy opportunities,” he also wrote, but then Musk stopped.

Yeah, but I didn’t leak it to the NYT. They must have got it through friends of friends.

I’ve heard from several people at TED that Gates still has half a billion less than Tesla, so I asked him, so it’s not a secret at all.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 23 April 2022

Unfortunately, he may not take Gates’ climate change philanthropy seriously if he holds a massively short position against the company doing most to fight climate change, the Tesla boss wrote, according to Twitter photos. Which he then confirmed as genuine. It is not clear whether Gates has reacted to this. Musk also said that he Last week at the TED 2022 conference in Canada Heard from many people that the founder of Microsoft is betting half a billion dollars against Tesla. So he asked about it, and it didn’t necessarily have to be a closely guarded secret.

SMS message likely to come from Musk

Musk commented on the source only by writing that he himself had not shared the text message exchange with the NYT. The newspaper may have gotten it from friends of friends – but they didn’t report it at all. One way or another, the beginning of the series must have been the Tesla boss if the news is real, unless other people have access to his cell phone. Whatever it is, it’s now confirmed what Gates didn’t want to reveal when he spoke directly in an interview last February (see photo above). Addressed the rumor that he had a great short position at Tesla: He doesn’t talk about his investments, the Microsoft founder explained at the time, when he did so shortly before.