Despite their differences, Bill Gates says he’s still open to collaborating with Elon Musk.
The Microsoft co-founder opened up about this relationship with the Tesla CEO, admitting that it hasn't always been a smooth one.
“He’s been nice to me at times, and mean to me at times,” the philanthropist said. “I will try and work with him because he’s brilliant, he’s rich, he’s influential.”
The 69-year-old was considered the world’s richest person from 1995 to 2007 and between 2014 and 2017. He also became the world's youngest billionaire in 1988.
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Meanwhile, Musk became the world’s richest person in 2021 and last year, was expected to become the world's first trillionaire by 2027. The two billionaires share a mutual respect but have also had very public disagreements.
Musk has previously criticised Gates for betting against Tesla stock, calling it hypocritical given Gates’ public stance on fighting climate change. The SpaceX founder also dismissed Gates' understanding of AI as 'limited.'
However, he has agreed to join Gates’ Giving Pledge, a campaign encouraging billionaires to donate most of their wealth to charitable causes.
Meanwhile, the co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust praised Musk for pushing the auto industry to take electric vehicles (EVs) seriously.
Ahead of the publication of his memoir Source Code, Gates stated: “I’m in awe of the great work he did at SpaceX and Tesla."
He added: “The fact that Tesla kind of forced the car industry to do great EVs is a gigantic contribution.”
At the same time, the American businessman added that he was surprised to see Musk and other Silicon Valley leaders supporting the new President Donald Trump.
“I’m a little surprised at the variety of political views coming out of Silicon Valley,” admitted Gates.
“Until about six years ago, other than Peter Thiel – who has a unique set of views that I don’t fully understand, but I don’t think they’re easy to characterise – I would have said it was a very left-of-center set of people, more like California is in general. So this phenomenon that a lot of people gave big money to Trump, and helped Trump, is a bit of a surprise to me.”
While Gates hasn’t spoken to Musk since Trump was re-elected, he joked about expecting to run into him during his own meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago earlier this year: “When I went down to see Trump, I wondered if Elon would be there, but it ended up being a meeting with just Trump and I and our two staff people."