Elon Musk accused Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates of making short-selling placements for Tesla shares, news.ro reports, according to Reuters. In a tweet on Friday, the CEO of Tesla admitted that he asked Gates if he was selling shares of the electric car manufacturer.
When investors short a stock, they bet that the price of the asset will fall.
“I’ve heard from several people at TED that Gates still has half a billion invested in short-selling Tesla shares, which is why I asked him, so it’s no secret,” Musk said in a tweet.
He answered the question of a Twitter user if a screenshot of an alleged text conversation between the two billionaires was real.
The Tesla chief’s response was, “Yes, but I did not disclose it to the NYT. You must have gotten it through your friends’ friends. “
In a message that could not be independently verified by CNBC, Musk asked Gates, “Do you still have a short position of half a billion dollars on Tesla?” To which Gates replied, “I’m sorry I didn’t close it. I’d like to talk about philanthropic possibilities. “
Musk replied, “I’m sorry, I can’t take your philanthropy on climate change seriously when you have a massive short position against Tesla, the company that does the most to address climate change.”
A Bill Gates spokesman 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 has done with Tesla is one of the greatest contributions to the fight against climate change that anyone has ever made. And you know, underestimating Elon is not a good idea. “
But he went on to say that what Tesla is doing is “easy things like passenger cars”.
Gates stressed the need to have a greater impact on climate change by addressing other industries.
“Basically, we don’t do enough for the hard stuff: steel, cement, meat,” he said at the time. “It simply came to our notice then. So we have to work at two-thirds. ”
This is not the first time the two men have had a public disagreement. When Gates revealed in 2020 that he had bought a fully electric Porsche Taycan, a Twitter user asked, “I wonder why Bill Gates decided to use Taycan instead of Tesla.”
Musk tweeted: “My conversations with Gates have been disappointing [ca să fiu sincer]”.
Musk has previously speculated that Gates may shorten his company’s shares.
Asked if he was short of Tesla shares, Gates told CNBC last year, “I’m not talking about my investments, but I think he should be very proud of what he’s done.”
In an interview with Bloomberg, also in February 2021, Gates said that he wished he had been “more on the side of long investments” in Tesla, when asked about Musk’s statements, news.ro reports.
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