Bill Gates called the Tesla CEO Elon Musk “very very smart” while he hoped that he would talk more often about climate change in the future. The Microsoft founder in an exclusive word with Bloomberg News shared how he believes Tesla is revolutionizing the technology in combatting issues like climate change. “Tesla has a huge contribution to driving the car industry towards electric,” Gates said.
When asked about his disappointments regarding the SpaceX CEO he said, “He talks a lot. I hope he’ll talk more about climate. You know, he’s very, very smart. He’s made a contribution within that area that is super important.” However, the billionaire philanthropist shared that he wouldn’t press Musk to speak on certain topics. “I don’t think he’ll listen to anybody telling him what to talk about. He’s unique, and he’ll talk about whatever he feels like,” he said. The two billionaires have had their disagreements on several issues in the past as they exchanged their friction once in a while. Previously, Gates had stated, “It’s actually quite expensive to go to Mars. You can buy measles vaccines and save lives for $1,000 per life save.”
The little tussle between the two tech-giant stalwarts dates back to 2022 when Musk refused to support Gates’ charity as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation founder bet half a billion dollars on Tesla’s falling stock prices. “Sorry. I cannot take your philanthropy on climate seriously when you have a massive short position against Tesla, the company doing the most to solve climate change,” Musk told Gates as reported by Daily Beast. However, after a heartfelt apology statement by Gates, the two did not discuss the philanthropy possibilities together. “Once he heard I’d shorted the stock, he was super mean to me, but he’s super mean to so many people, so you can’t take it too personally,” Gates said expressing his disappointment back then.
Back in 2018, however, Musk told Rolling Stones, “Climate change is the biggest threat that humanity faces this century, except for AI. I keep telling people this. I hate to be Cassandra here, but it’s all fun and games until somebody loses a f—ing eye.” Sharing his motivation to start Tesla he said, “The fundamental intention of Tesla, at least my motivation, was to accelerate the advent of sustainable energy. That’s why I open-sourced the patents. It’s the only way to transition to sustainable energy better.”
His Musk Foundation is involved with the XPrize Carbon Removal Program which is responsible for carbon removal competition across the globe. “We want teams to build real systems that can make a measurable impact at a gigaton level. Whatever it takes. Time is of the essence,” Musk said as he shared his goals. The Musk Foundation aims to fight climate change and bring back the stats of Earth’s carbon cycle to a normal level.
