Tesla founder Elon Musk confirmed testy text messages sent between him and fellow tech billionaire Bill Gates on Friday night, just minutes before Musk posted a side-by-side photo mocking the Microsoft founder.
The messages show that Gates was pressing Musk to donate money for “philanthropy possibilities.” Musk rejected the offer and told Gates he couldn’t take his climate change activism “seriously,” since Gates was shorting the Tesla stock by half a billion dollars. Tesla, of course, focuses on electric cars.
Shorting a stock means a buyer bets the share price will drop, as Gates apparently did with Tesla. If big investors do this, it can send a message to other investors that the short seller is in-the-know about something they don’t know, sending the shares into a spiral.
“Do you still have a half billion dollar short position against Tesla?” Musk said to Gates via text message, screenshots show.
“Sorry to say I haven’t closed it out yet,” Gates replied. “I would like to discuss philanthropy possibilities.”
Musk came back hard against Gates, calling out the billionaire for being insincere in his philanthropic efforts. “Sorry, but 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,” he wrote.
So apparently Bill Gates hit up @elonmusk to discuss “philanthropy on climate change” but Elon asked if he still had a half billion dollar short position on $TSLA.
Bill said he hasn’t closed it out, so Elon told him to get lost. No idea if this is true lol pic.twitter.com/iuHkDG3bAd
— Whole Mars Catalog (@WholeMarsBlog) April 22, 2022
The SpaceX CEO later confirmed the messages via Twitter. “Yeah, but I didn’t leak it to [The New York Times],” he wrote. “They must have got it through friends of friends. 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.”
Yeah, but I didn’t leak it to NYT. They must have got it through friends of friends.
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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 23, 2022
Minutes later, Musk mocked Gates with a side-by-side image, captioned, “In case u need to lose a b*ner fast.”
in case u need to lose a boner fast pic.twitter.com/fcHiaXKCJi
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 23, 2022
And for good measure, the 50-year-old added a post ripping on Twitter, saying personnel at the company were at a “shadow ban council” reviewing his tweet, a knock on the platform’s censorship practices.
Musk has recently made moves to buy Twitter and take the company private.
On Thursday, he disclosed that he’s received commitment letters for $46.5 billion in funding for his hostile takeover of the company and is considering going straight to shareholders with a tender offer.
The tech billionaire and world’s richest man has repeatedly indicated that he plans on opening up transparency and adhering to principles of free speech, if he does snag the company.
shadow ban council reviewing tweet … pic.twitter.com/cawjtwc7CW
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 23, 2022
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