Gates move not cool, says Musk

TESLA founder Elon Musk took a jibe at Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates this week after it emerged that the world’s second-richest man bought his first electric car – and it wasn’t a Tesla.

Gates told Youtube tech reviewer Marques Brownlee in an interview that he bought his first-ever EV, a Porsche Taycan, and he called the vehicle “very, very cool”.

However, the South African born inventor Musk was clearly not impressed by this purchase decision or about the fact that Gates mentioned some of the challenges that the electric car industry faces.

“My conversations with Gates have been underwhelming tbh (to be honest),” Musk tweeted in response to Twitter user Tesletter.

This despite the fact that Gates complimented Tesla during the Youtube interview.

When Brownlee asked Gates about his thoughts on Tesla’s dominance in the electric vehicle market, he acknowledged that the American carmaker was the cream of the crop when it came to electric cars, adding that lots of manufacturers were moving to produce electric vehicles because Tesla’s appeal had been increasing over the past few years.

“Tesla, if you had to name one company that’s helped drive that, it’s them,” Gates said.

While he acknowledged that the electric car industry had a bright future ahead, Gates said there were challenges ahead, including the price premium over petrol propulsion (which Gates said would eventually disappear) and range anxiety.

The latter is what prompted Twitter user Tesletter to rope Musk into the argument.

“I’m disappointed because a lot of people are going to watch the interview and they are going to trust Bill’s word for it and not even consider EVS. Why? Because Bill Gates is a really smart guy!” | IOL