Elon Musk reveals he turned down Bill Gates’ offer to collaborate on climate change

Elon Musk revealed through text on Friday that he declined to work on climate change with Bill Gates because the Microsoft co-founder was shorting Tesla.

The two billionaires appear to be planning a meeting before Musk asks Gates if he still has a “half-billion-dollar short bet against Tesla” in the texts.

Gates replies, “Sorry to say I haven’t closed it yet,” adding in another text: “I would like to discuss philanthropy possibilities.”

Musk responds that he can’t take Gates’ climate change philanthropy seriously because he “has a big short position against Tesla, the company doing the most to tackle climate change.”

Musk confirmed the accuracy of a screenshot of the text exchange provided by @WholeMarsBlog on Friday night, who wrote “No idea if this is legit lol” and inquired about it.

“Yeah,” Musk answered, “but I didn’t leak it to NYT. They must have got it through friends of friends. I heard from multiple people at TED that Gates still had half-billion short against Tesla, which is why I asked him, so it’s not exactly top secret.”

Shorting is when an investor borrows stock with the expectation that it will fall in value, resulting in a profit.

Musk also attacked Gates on Friday, equating a photo of the Seattleite to a pregnant man emoji in a filthy tweet.