TL;DR: In a sequence of leaked texts, Elon Musk apparently rejected having philanthropic talks with fellow billionaire Bill Gates due to the latter’s half-billion-dollar quick place on Tesla. Musk confirmed the authenticity of those texts, however claimed he did not leak them himself.
On Friday, Elon Musk confirmed that he confronted Bill Gates about shorting Tesla inventory. The leaked screenshots of texts between the 2 billionaires have been shared on Twitter, asking Musk in the event that they have been real.
In these screenshots, the Tesla CEO overtly requested Gates if he nonetheless held a $500 million quick place in opposition to Tesla. Gates admitted that he hadn’t closed it out, including that he want to talk about philanthropic potentialities.
So apparently Bill Gates hit up @elonmusk to debate “philanthropy on local weather change” however Elon requested if he nonetheless had a half billion greenback quick place on $TSLA.
Bill stated he hasn’t closed it out, so Elon advised him to get misplaced. No thought if that is true lol pic.twitter.com/iuHkDG3bAd
— Whole Mars Catalog (@WholeMarsWeblog) April 22, 2022
Musk rapidly turned down this request, claiming that he cannot take Gates’ view of local weather change significantly whereas he is holding a brief place in opposition to Tesla. According to him, the corporate was doing probably the most to unravel local weather change.
Short promoting usually signifies that an investor or dealer sells shares they’ve borrowed, intending to purchase them again later at a cheaper price. By doing this, they’re basically betting that the asset’s worth will go down.
Musk claimed that the screenshots have been actual, though he denied leaking them himself. It’s unknown when this change passed off, though it is price noting that Musk first talked about Bill Gates shorting Tesla inventory over a yr in the past on the Joe Rogan podcast.
Yeah, however I did not leak it to NYT. They will need to have obtained it by means of mates of mates.
I heard from a number of folks at TED that Gates nonetheless had half billion quick in opposition to Tesla, which is why I requested him, so it is not precisely prime secret.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 23, 2022
Elon Musk later tweeted a meme supposed to mock Gates.
The two billionaires have overtly feuded up to now, disagreeing about matters resembling Covid-19, colonizing Mars, and cryptocurrencies. Musk additionally tweeted in 2020 that his conversations with Gates have been underwhelming, so it is clear the 2 aren’t on finest phrases.
