Alleged Tesla short sales
Elon Musk poisoned against Bill Gates
April 25, 2022, 5:10 p.m
Tesla boss Elon Musk wants to take over Twitter to defend freedom of expression on the platform. What the richest person in the world imagines by this can be guessed from a dispute with his fellow billionaire Bill Gates.
With a tweet below the belt, the currently richest person in the world, Elon Musk, attacked a predecessor at the top of the super-rich list, Bill Gates. Musk wrote that he believes Gates has shorted $500 million worth of Tesla stock and is betting the stock will fall. He then poked fun at Gates’ girth with a photo, an emoji of a pot-bellied man, and a note that he thought the sight was appropriate “if you need to get rid of an erection quickly.”
He later followed up, saying he no longer wanted to make fun of Gates for shorting Tesla shares while claiming to support climate protection.
The background: Gates had publicly praised the electric car pioneer last year. In an interview with Sway, a New York Times podcast, Gates was quoted as saying, “Well, it’s important to say that what Elon did with Tesla is one of the biggest contributors to climate change, anyone has ever done. And you know, underestimating Elon isn’t a good idea.”
Musk now obviously felt grossly underestimated by Gates. If Gates really believes in a greener future, he seemed to be saying, of course he must believe in the electric car maker’s stock as well. In the first questionable tweet, responding to a follower’s question about an alleged exchange of messages between the two billionaires, Musk wrote that he confronted Gates about shorting Tesla. Gates reportedly confirmed such speculation on a falling stock price in a chat with Musk. Tesla and the Gates Foundation did not respond to requests for comment.
Elon Musk is currently looking to buy Twitter. The reason he gave was that he sees freedom of expression on the platform threatened by censorship. Musk’s suggestive tweet, which has now well over a million likes, has not yet been deleted, nor has Twitter taken any other action against Musk. Obviously, many of Musk’s Twitter followers share his humor. Under the tweet, however, numerous users also express their disappointment that the entrepreneur is not living up to his role model function.