Elon Musk Claims Bill Gates Has a Multi-Billion Dollar Short Position Against Tesla

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has again accused Microsoft founder and vaccine advocate Bill Gates of not being serious in his commitment to environmental issues, as the feud between the two billionaires continues to escalate.

In a discussion about whether politicians are more trusted by the public than billionaires, Musk said that Gates still has a multi-billion dollar short position against Tesla. Musk has used Gates’ short position against the electric car company recently to argue that Gates is only paying lip service to concerns about climate change.

Responding to conservative pundit Brigitte Gabriel, who said she trusted Musk more than Gates despite them both being billionaires, Musk quipped that he also had “trust issues” with the Microsoft founder.

“Since Gates still has a multi-billion dollar short position against Tesla while claiming to help with global warming, I guess I have some trust issues with him too,” said Musk.

Musk clarified that Gates short position, which began at $500 million, is now between $1.5 and $2 billion to close out, due to Tesla’s rise in stock price.

The war of words between Musk and Gates has been escalating in recent months, with the two billionaires at odds on a range of issues beyond competing business interests.

Gates is a well-known advocate for reducing the global population through contraception, while Musk believes that the opposite problem, underpopulation, is a bigger threat to the future of civilization.

Musk also calls himself a free speech absolutist, and is seeking to acquire Twitter with the goal of restoring free speech on the platform.

Gates, meanwhile, has repeatedly called for social media companies to do more to censor alleged “misinformation” about coronavirus. As Breitbart News recently revealed, 11 of the 26 NGOs that signed a letter calling on Twitter advertisers to boycott the platform if Musk restored free speech are backed by money from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its supported entities.

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election. Follow him on Twitter @LibertarianBlue.