Feud continues between Elon Musk and Bill Gates after vulgar tweet

The feud between Elon Musk and Bill Gates has intensified after the Tesla founder mocked the Microsoft billionaire’s comments on climate change.

An increasingly terse back and forth between Elon Musk and Bill Gates – which saw the Tesla CEO strike out with a vulgar tweet about the Microsoft founder a month ago – continues after Gates downplayed his attempt to short Tesla stocks.

Gates appears to have annoyed Musk over comments he made during an interview on Saturday with French YouTuber HugoDécrypte, Fox News reports.

In the chat, Gates claimed he had put more money towards fighting climate change than anyone else.

But Musk accused Gates of not being serious in his environmental work because he had bought shorting stock against Tesla, saying Gates had made a “half-billion dollar” bet against the electric car company.

Want a streaming service dedicated to news? Flash lets you stream 25+ news channels in 1 place. New to Flash? Try 1 month free. Offer ends 31 October, 2022 >

Elon Musk appears to be feuding with his billionaire rival Bill Gates. Picture: Brendan Smialowski/AFP

Bill Gates says he has put more money towards climate change than Musk. Picture: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP

“I give a lot more to climate change than Elon or anyone else,” Gates said in the interview.

“I give a lot of philanthropic dollars, I back companies – you know electric cars are about 16 per cent of emissions, so we also need to solve that other 84 per cent.”

Musk responded to the comments with a simple: “Sigh.”

Sigh

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 4, 2022

It comes more than a month after Musk confirmed he rejected an opportunity to work with Gates on philanthropy in late April.

Musk confirmed a leaked text conversation between the pair was real – in which he confronted Gates over his purchase of $US500 million ($A695 million) in shorting stock against Tesla.

The billionaires appeared set to meet before Musk asked Gates if he still had a “half billion dollar short position against Tesla”.

“Sorry to say I haven’t closed it yet,” Gates responded. “I would like to discuss philanthropy possibilities.”

Musk posted this tweet about Bill Gates in late April. Picture: Twitter

Musk replied by saying he couldn’t take Gates’ offer seriously “when you have a massive short position against Tesla, the company doing the most to solve climate change”.

Less than 20 minutes after confirming the leaked text exchange, Musk then posted a vulgar tweet comparing Gates to the “pregnant man” emoji, with the caption: “In case u need to lose a b**er fast.”

Gates has yet to publicly comment on the tweet.

This article originally appeared on Fox News and was reproduced with permission

Originally published as Feud continues between Elon Musk and Bill Gates after vulgar tweet