Bill Gates Wants Elon Musk To Talk About Climate But Tesla CEO Thinks Climate Change Alarm Is Exaggerated: 'He'll Talk About Whatever He Feels Like'

Microsoft Corp. co-founder and billionaire Bill Gates wishes that Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk would talk more about climate change but the latter might not.

What Happened: “He talks a lot. I hope he will talk more about climate,” Gates, known for his contributions to solving climate change, said with a laugh in an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday.

When asked by Bloomberg's Senior Executive Editor for Energy, Climate and Equality, John Fraher, as to what he would like Musk to talk about when he talks about climate, Gates said, “I don’t think he’ll listen to anybody telling him what to talk about. So. You know, he’s unique and he’ll talk about whatever he feels like.”

Gates also applauded Musk in the interview, commending his efforts in driving the car industry towards electric vehicles. Musk’s Tesla is the world’s largest battery electric vehicle seller with 443,956 EVs sold in the second quarter alone.

Musk’s Take On Climate Change: Musk, however, thinks that climate change risk is “overstated in the near-term.”

“Climate change risk is overstated in the near-term, but probably accurate in the long-term,” Musk wrote on X in June while adding that industries must reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

“What people do on the surface is essentially irrelevant,” Musk said while adding that taxing dairy farmers for the emissions released by their cattle as proposed by the country of Denmark ‘won’t matter’ for climate change.

The truth is somewhere in the middle.

Climate change risk is overstated in the near-term, but probably accurate in the long-term.

All that matters is how many billions of tons of carbon are transferred from deep underground into the atmosphere and oceans, aka the "surface…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 30, 2024

Why It Matters: Gates and Musk have a strained relationship, mostly owing to Gates' short position in Tesla stock. "Once Tesla fully solves autonomy and has Optimus in volume production, anyone still holding a short position will be obliterated. Even Gates," Musk said earlier this month.

Gates, however, has also previously applauded Musk. In an appearance on CNBC in 2021, Gates said, "We need more Elon Musks."

Both Gates and Musk are among the top five rich people around the globe. While Musk tops the chart with a total net worth of $264 billion, Gates is in the fifth position with a total net worth of $160 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

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