Bill Gates has revealed how Elon Musk approached him about shorting $1.5 billion in Tesla stock, glamsquad reports.
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Musk publicly attacked Gates on X in 2022 for shorting Tesla’s stock “while claiming to support climate change action.”
In his upcoming biography of Musk, Walter Isaacson says that in September of that year, Gates called Musk and said he wanted to ‘come visit [him] and talk about charity and climate’ at a meeting.
The encounter took place at Musk’s Austin, Texas, facility, where Musk challenged Gates about his decision to short Tesla stock. Gates apologized for the $1.5 billion move, but Musk was still unhappy and became’super nasty’.
‘But he’s really rude to a lot of people, so you can’t take it personally,’ Gates said Isaacson.
When Gates first sought the appointment, Musk replied that he didn’t have a scheduler or a personal assistant and that he should have his secretary call him directly.
Gates skipped his secretary and scheduled the meeting for March 9, 2022.
Musk offered Gates a tour of his Austin facility, which impressed him, but the two had a lot to talk about while he was there.
When Isaacson probed Gates on why he shorted the stock, he simply stated that he thought he could make money by doing so, which Isaacson referred to as ‘foreign’ to Musk.
‘How can someone claim to be enthusiastic about combating climate change and yet do nothing?’
‘It’s complete hypocrisy. Why profit from the collapse of a sustainable energy vehicle manufacturer?’
Musk’s ex-girlfriend and mother of three of his children, Grimes, described the encounter as “a little bit of a d**k-measuring contest.”
Musk’s claim that solar energy might address climate change and that batteries could ever power semi-trucks was also criticized by Gates.
According to CNBC, Gates stated, “I showed him the numbers.” ‘It was plainly an area where I knew something he didn’t.’
Gates also mocked Musk’s Mars colonization attempt.
‘I’m not into Mars,’ Gates told Isaacson. ‘On Mars, he’s gone overboard. I let him explain his Mars thinking to me, which is somewhat weird.
It’s this crazy thing where maybe there’s a nuclear war on Earth and so the people on Mars are there and they’ll come back down and, you know, be alive after we all kill each other.’
Previously, Musk dissed Gates’ physique on Twitter posting a photo of the Microsoft mogul alongside Apple’s controversial pregnant man emoji ‘in case you need to kill a boner.’
Gates, the world’s third richest man after Musk and Jeff Bezos, took a shot earlier this year at the Tesla CEO after the electric vehicle maker announced taking a $1.5 billion stake in Bitcoin.
‘Elon has tons of money and he’s very sophisticated, so I don’t worry that his Bitcoin will sort of randomly go up or down,’ Gates told Bloomberg.
‘I do think people get bought into these manias who may not have as much money to spare, so I’m not bullish on Bitcoin. My general thought would be that if you have less money than Elon, you should probably watch out,’ he said.
Gates has also previously made comments about electric trucks like the Tesla Semi not being viable, which Musk countered.
In an interview on the Joe Rogan Experience, Musk said he believes that the Microsoft founder had a big short position on Tesla stocks at one point.
‘I heard that at one point he had a large short position. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it seems weird,’ Musk told Rogan.
‘People I know who know the situation pretty well, I asked them ‘Are you sure?’ and they said ‘Yes, he has a huge short position on Tesla.’ That didn’t work out too well.’
The book by Isaacson, set for release Tuesday, features several revelations about Musk.