Elon Musk says he confronted Bill Gates about shorting Tesla

Elon Musk says he confronted Bill Gates about shorting Tesla


CEO of Tesla Elon Musk says he confronted fellow billionaire Bill Gates about whether he was shorting Tesla’s stock. Musk is seen here at the Tesla Giga Texas manufacturing “Cyber Rodeo” grand opening party on April 7, 2022.

Suzanne Cordeiro | AFP | Getty Images

Elon Musk has accused Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates of shorting Tesla.

In a tweet on Friday, the Tesla CEO admitted that he asked Gates if he was short-selling shares of the electric carmaker. When investors short a stock, they are betting that the price of the asset will fall.

“I heard from multiple people at TED that Gates still had half billion short against Tesla, which is why I asked him, so it’s not exactly top secret,” Musk said in the tweet.

He was responding to a Twitter user’s question on whether a screengrab of a supposed text conversation between the two billionaires was real.

The Tesla chief’s response was: “Yeah, but I didn’t leak it to NYT. They must have got it through friends of friends.”

In the text exchange, which couldn’t be independently verified by CNBC, Musk asked Gates: “Do you still have a half billion dollar short position against Tesla?”

To which Gates replied: “Sorry to say I haven’t closed it out. I would like to discuss philanthropy possibilities.”

Musk shot back: “Sorry, I cannot take your philanthropy on climate change seriously when you have a massive short position against Tesla, the company doing the most to solve climate change.”

A spokesperson for Bill Gates was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.

Gates told NYT opinion writer Kara Swisher last year: “It’s important to say that what Elon did with Tesla is one of the greatest contributions to climate change anyone’s ever made. And you know, underestimating Elon is not a good idea.”

But he went on to add that what Tesla was doing was “easy stuff, like passenger cars.” Gates emphasized the need to make a greater impact on climate change by tackling other industries.

“We’re basically not doing enough on the hard stuff: steel, cement, meat,” he said at that time. “And sadly, the things people think about — the electricity, passenger cars — are a third of the problem. So we have to work on the two-thirds.”

“If all you pay attention to is those short-term metrics, not the green premiums across the board, then you miss out on what is the longest lead time, which is the hard stuff.”

It’s not the first time the two men have had a public disagreement.

When Gates revealed in 2020 that he bought himself an all-electric Porsche Taycan, a Twitter user asked: “I wonder why Bill Gates decided to go with the Taycan instead of a Tesla.”

Musk responded in a tweet: “My conversations with Gates have been underwhelming tbh [to be honest].”

Musk has also previously speculated on the possibility of Gates shorting his company’s stock. Asked about those comments and whether he was short Tesla, Gates told CNBC last year: “I don’t talk about my investments but I think he should be very proud of what he’s done.”

In a Bloomberg interview also in February 2021, Gates said that he wished he had “been more on the long side” of Tesla when asked about Musk’s claims.

— CNBC’s Todd Haselton and Ryan Browne contributed to this report





Source

How Florida quietly surpassed California in solar growth
World

How Florida quietly surpassed California in solar growth

Solar energy is booming across the U.S. and, for the first time, Florida is catching up to industry powerhouses Texas and California. Despite removing climate change from its official state policy in 2024, Florida added more utility-scale solar than California last year, with over 3 gigawatts of new capacity coming online.  “This is not a […]

Read More
Yoga, Zumba or HIIT? The best way to exercise, based on your personality type
World

Yoga, Zumba or HIIT? The best way to exercise, based on your personality type

Curating your fitness routine to better match your personality could help you get the most out of your workouts, a new study shows. The paper, published last month in Frontiers in Psychology, shows that certain personality traits may indicate which type of exercises people enjoy and how likely they are to stick with them. “We […]

Read More
29-year-old American left NYC and moved to Istanbul where he started a tourism company that brought in 0,000 last year
World

29-year-old American left NYC and moved to Istanbul where he started a tourism company that brought in $100,000 last year

In 2017, Doug Barnard, a college student at the time, took a trip to India with his mom. The experience was so impactful that it eventually inspired him to become a full-time traveler—a path he didn’t know was possible for him. “Going to India was an eye-opening experience for me. It was the first time […]

Read More