San Francisco - Tesla founder Elon Musk took a jibe at Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Tuesday after it emerged that the world’s second richest man just bought his first electric car - and it wasn’t a Tesla.
Gates told YouTube tech reviewer Marques Brownlee in an interview that he purchased 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 actually 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 is the cream of the crop when it comes to electric cars, adding that lots of manufacturers are moving to produce electric vehicles because Tesla's appeal has been increased 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 has a bright future ahead of it, Gates was also objective enough to mention the challenges that still lie 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!”
My conversations with Gates have been underwhelming tbh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 18, 2020