Bill Gates hits out at Elon Musk, calls his comments on the pandemic "outrageous"
“Elon’s positioning is to maintain a high level of outrageous comments.”
July 29, 2020 / 03:10 PM IST
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates recently hit out at Tesla boss Elon Musk, suggesting he should perhaps focus on making electric vehicles and rockets rather than the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
In an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Gates called Musk’s comments about the coronavirus pandemic “outrageous”. Gates said, “Elon’s positioning is to maintain a high level of outrageous comments.” The Tesla boss has made the news for all the wrong reasons, ever since the pandemic hit the US.
In the past, Musk suggested that deaths have been overcounted and lockdowns may not have been necessary. He even said that California’s approach to combating COVID-19 was “fascist”. The Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist had pointed out that misinformation travels faster than facts on social media.
Gates said, “When you let people communicate, you have to deal with the fact that certain incorrect things that are very titillating can spread very rapidly compared to the truth. And we’ve always seen that with vaccines.”
Gates, who has been the subject of several conspiracy theories, said, “ To the degree to which these media companies can see what’s being said on their platform and take things that are absolutely wrong and get rid of those things or slow those things down, that’s very tough.”
As of today, COVID-19 cases in the US rose to over 4.4 million with the death toll hitting 148,056. More recently, Texas became the fourth state with over 400,000 cases, joining Florida, California, and New York.