Musk and Bill Gates, one is the new richest man in the world, whose value has soared and has surpassed Buffett, Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Bezos and other billionaires in succession within half a year, and the other is the old richest man who has topped the list of the world's richest people for 13 consecutive sessions from 1995 to 2007. Recently, the two old and new richest men once again made connections. Because Bill Gates opposed Musk's acquisition of twitter, the former richest man even spent hundreds of millions of dollars to fund more than 10 organizations calling for preventing musk from acquiring twitter. Meanwhile, musk said that Bill Gates held a "billions of dollars" short position in Tesla.
Musk also attacked Gates' vaccine business, saying that gates should be careful to add something to the vaccine.
Musk's $44billion privatization of twitter in this century is pending, and the dispute and confrontation between the old and the new richest man has become a new focus.
Gates $500million short Tesla
On May 27 local time, Tesla CEO musk launched a vote on Twitter: who do you trust more? In the interaction, he mentioned Bill Gates again.
Musk said that while gates claimed to help solve the problem of global warming, he also made "billions of dollars" short Tesla. I think I have some trust problems with him. Fans asked how Bill Gates' short position increased from "500million dollars" to "billions of dollars". Musk replied: it was 500million dollars, but Tesla rose a lot later, so now it will cost $1.5 billion to $2billion to settle.
Earlier, musk admitted in a twitter post that he had privately "questioned" whether Gates was shorting Tesla shares. In response to a screenshot of a text message posted online by musk and gates, musk said that he had not leaked it to the New York Times. They must have got it through a friend of a friend.
Last year, when asked by the media whether to short Tesla, Gates said that I would not talk about my investment.
On May 25, the extreme right-wing publication Breitbart news claimed that hundreds of millions of dollars had flowed from the Gates Foundation to 11 of the 26 organizations. These organizations signed an open letter last month urging twitter advertisers to boycott the company if Elon Musk restored freedom of speech on the platform.
According to the FFO analysis, the Gates Foundation paid 102 cash payments to the new venture fund or through the venture fund, totaling US $457million.
This move was laughed at by musk: what a stupid move!
Subsequently, musk continued to criticize Gates' vaccine business in his comments: you think this is bad enough. Wait and see what he put in your vaccine.
It is reported that Bill Gates has made huge investments in pharmaceutical giants such as Modena, Pfizer and biontech, and his foundation has even donated to the British drug and health products administration. He thinks it is worth billions of dollars to invest in more than 10 kinds of vaccines.
Previously, Bill Gates expressed concern about the possibility of twitter spreading false information in the future in public activities, and said that musk may do worse because this is not his original track, and musk may make this situation worse.
At that time, musk fought back by shorting Tesla's shares with Bill Gates, but Bill Gates replied that Musk's remarks did not bother him.
The old and new richest man has a long history of gratitude and resentment
On november24,2020, Musk's net assets surpassed Bill Gates for the first time, reaching the second place in the global rich list with a net asset of $128billion. In just 10 months, Musk's net assets increased by $100.3 billion, ranking from 35th to second.
In the twinkling of an eye, in January 2021, Tesla's share price soared, and Musk's wealth soared to $194.8 billion. This figure officially exceeded Amazon CEO Bezos's $185.3 billion and became the world's richest man.
In October of the same year, musk remained the richest man in the world with a net asset of US $230billion. Bill Gates ranks fourth with $130billion and Buffett ranks tenth with $102billion. His wealth is equivalent to the sum of gates and Buffett.
You know, this is not the first time that the two richest men, old and new, have openly connected with each other. Musk and Bill Gates have a long history of gratitude and resentment.
According to Geek Park, from their attitude towards the COVID-19, their views on electric trucks, to their disputes over artificial intelligence, or their evaluation of each other, the two people frequently connect with each other across the air. For example, musk commented that Gates was extremely boring and knew nothing about electric trucks; Bill Gates said musk was just an engineer.
In 2015, they shared the same frame for the first time at the Boao Forum for Asia. At that time, they basically agreed on artificial intelligence.
In the twinkling of an eye, in 2016, gates publicly delivered a speech saying that the dream of artificial intelligence was about to come true. Human beings have made great progress in the field of artificial intelligence. In the future, AI can even make human beings better in some fields.
However, musk holds a distinct opposite view. With regard to the development of AI, he believes that human beings are very likely to become pets of robots in the future. With the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, human intelligence will stop. The most serious consequence is that robots surpass humans and become the theme of operating the world. Human beings may be pets in the hearts of robots.
In 2018, Bill Gates publicly questioned Musk's "super high speed rail" project. He said that he was not sure whether the concept of super high speed rail was meaningful, and it was difficult to make it safe. At that time, musk did not fight back.
In 2020, gates suddenly staged a "big reversal". In his interview, he first strongly praised Tesla products for their incredible popularity. He turned around and said he had just bought his first electric car, the Porsche taycan.
This time, Gates was countered by musk: "to be honest, the conversation with Gates didn't leave a deep impression."
In addition, the two also have differences in environmental protection. Bill Gates said in an interview in 2021 that Tesla has only done relatively simple things like passenger cars for environmental protection and climate change. At the same time, he stressed that in dealing with climate change, the actions of many other industries are also needed to have a greater impact on climate change.
It can be seen that the two old and new richest men have their own judgment on the industry wind direction. At the same time, the changes in the industry wind direction have also created the two old and new richest men. Bill Gates started with the Internet operating system in the 20th century, while mask, the new richest man, accumulated his wealth in the electric vehicle industry in the 21st century. The connection between the two old and new richest men may be mixed with the inevitability of the times.