Elon Musk is lashing out at Invoice Gates after the Microsoft co-founder accused him of endangering the lives of susceptible kids worldwide by pushing to dismantle the US international help equipment.
“Who does Bill Gates think he is to make comments about the welfare of children?” Musk stated throughout an interview on Tuesday on the Bloomberg Qatar Financial Discussion board, responding to Gates’ assertion that Musk’s insurance policies had been harming the world’s most impoverished communities.
Musk, who pledged to proceed main Tesla as its CEO for at the very least the following 5 years, added: “Show us any evidence whatsoever that that is true. It’s false.”
The Put up has sought remark from Gates and Musk.
Musk’s assault in opposition to Gates got here after the software program mogul gave a blistering interview to the Monetary Occasions by which he accused the Tesla CEO and DOGE (Division of Authorities Effectivity) chief of recklessly gutting US international help packages beneath President Trump’s directive.
“The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one,” Gates stated, pointing to cuts in funding to the US Company for Worldwide Improvement (USAID), together with packages that offered HIV-prevention remedy to moms in Mozambique.
“I’d love for him to go in and meet the children that have now been infected with HIV because he cut that money.”
Gates stated the choice to slash USAID funding stemmed from conspiracy theories reportedly circulated in Musk’s internal circle — particularly, that US international help was getting used to ship condoms to Hamas in Gaza.
In February, Musk’s company declared that it was “time for [USAID] to die,” and defunded quite a few packages. He later brandished a chainsaw onstage alongside Argentine President Javier Milei in the course of the Conservative Political Motion Convention in a theatrical celebration of finances cuts.
In defending the cuts, a White Home spokesperson described Musk as “a patriot working to fulfill President Trump’s mission to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Gates, nonetheless, stated the insurance policies had “real-world consequences,” noting that life-saving vaccines had been expiring in warehouses because of lack of distribution funding.
The escalating feud between Musk and Gates is the newest flare-up in a years-long conflict between the 2 tech titans.
Their disputes have ranged from public well being coverage and philanthropy to finance — together with a 2022 episode by which Musk publicly mocked Gates after studying the Microsoft founder had shorted Tesla inventory.
The escalating feud between Musk and Gates is the newest flare-up in a years-long conflict between the 2 tech titans.
Their public tensions date again to at the very least 2020, when Gates publicly forged doubt on the viability of electrical long-haul vans — just for Musk to fireplace again on Twitter (now X), calling Gates “underwhelming” and posting memes mocking his look.
When Gates admitted to shorting Tesla inventory regardless of professing assist for local weather initiatives, Musk accused him of hypocrisy.
“He had a big short position against Tesla, which is the company doing the most to solve climate change,” Musk tweeted in 2022. “This is not cool.”
Musk additionally as soon as referred to as Gates “a knucklehead” throughout a Clubhouse chat and mocked his information of electrical automobiles, whereas Gates has criticized Musk for downplaying COVID-19 and spreading misinformation in the course of the pandemic.
Gates notably warned that Musk ought to keep in his lane when it got here to public well being, saying, “He’s not much involved in vaccines.”
