The dispute between two tech billionaires escalates: Where the hatred between Bill Gates and Elon Musk comes from

“The richest man in the world killing the poorest children in the world is not a pretty picture.”

This is what Microsoft founder Bill Gates, the thirteenth-richest person on Earth, said to the Financial Times about Elon Musk, who currently tops the list. Is there a more serious accusation than calling someone a child murderer?

Gates hits Musk hard with his accusation – after all, the Tesla boss praises having many children as a virtue and has fathered at least 14 offspring himself.

Gates, 69, made the controversial remarks as part of his announcement that he intends to donate his entire fortune, estimated at $112 billion, over the next 20 years. There are urgent problems that need to be addressed, Gates said, and he cannot conserve his resources.

The attack against Musk has a current cause and, at the same time, a long history. The Gates Foundation – founded in 1999 by Bill and his ex-wife Melinda – is one of the world's largest charitable foundations. It has been committed to fighting deadly diseases for decades. Its stated goal is to reduce or even eradicate infections with polio, malaria, and many other epidemics.

However, this mission suffered a serious setback. Elon Musk, CEO of companies like Tesla and SpaceX and recently also head of President Donald Trump's notorious American austerity agency, DOGE, is responsible for this. As one of his first official acts, Musk pulled the plug on the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a multi-billion dollar development agency, in February.

In an interview in January, Gates warned against such a move. USAID is also active in the fight against diseases. The agency and the Gates Foundation work closely together. Progress is not possible without government support, Gates says. For example, in the fight against polio, for which he has already donated over six billion dollars. Now, because of Musk, Gates' life's work is in jeopardy.

The Tesla CEO is said to have once admired the Microsoft founder. He was also considered a big fan of his software and ensured that it was used in his companies.

But almost exactly three years ago, a falling out began. Musk felt deeply offended by Gates. The spark was a meeting that, of all things, revolved around philanthropy—and the question of what truly benefits humanity.

Musk biographer Walter Isaacson has documented the encounter in detail. According to the report, Bill Gates flew to a Tesla factory in Texas in March 2022 specifically to meet Musk. His goal: to persuade him to donate more of his wealth to charity.

It must have been an awkward meeting. The two multi-billionaires couldn't find common ground. Gates felt Musk was thinking too much about Mars. He also expressed doubts about an electric truck like the one Tesla wanted to build.

Musk, in turn, said that most philanthropy was "bullshit." He argued that at most 20 cents of every dollar donated had a positive impact. He urged Gates to invest in Tesla if he was serious about combating climate change.

Finally, Elon Musk asked Bill Gates if it was true that he had short positions on Tesla—that is, if Bill Gates had bet on a falling Tesla stock price. Gates had to admit that this was the case.

About a month later, Gates nevertheless sent Musk suggestions for charitable projects. Musk, however, wanted to know if Gates still held short positions against Tesla. "Sorry, I haven't sold them yet," Gates replied. Text messages to that effect were leaked to the public.

Elon Musk took this personally. He had often publicly clashed with short sellers who bet against his companies. He despised nothing more. In a sense, Tesla, along with SpaceX, is to him what the Foundation is to Bill Gates: the vehicle where solutions for the future are created. Anyone who opposes Tesla opposes its mission.

Musk subsequently made fun of Bill Gates' big belly on Twitter (now X), saying it looked like a pregnant trans man, and the two went their separate ways.

Musk has so far only responded indirectly to Gates' statement that his budget cuts cost children's lives. On his platform X, he has reposted statements from an old interview he gave, according to which Bill Gates wants to prevent the Jeffrey Epstein files from being published.

Gates was at least acquainted with the deceased New York sex offender and met him several times, which he later described as a "mistake." Musk thus insinuates that Bill Gates could also be a sex offender.

The rift between the two tech heavyweights is likely permanent. Yet there are striking parallels between them. The American and the South African-born man were already noted as children for their exceptionally sharp minds, which quickly turned into arrogance. While Gates infuriated his parents and fellow students, Musk was bullied and beaten at school for it.

Driven by the will to break conventions and dominate the competition, they have achieved the greatest humanly possible as entrepreneurs and technology innovators at a young age.

Gates started the PC revolution with Microsoft, while Musk simultaneously turned the automotive industry and space travel upside down with Tesla and SpaceX.

Both are known for their harsh, sometimes tyrannical leadership styles. While Gates placed great value on his public image as a smart, philanthropic thinker, his employees were forced to sign strict confidentiality agreements to keep his outbursts of anger to themselves.

During his 2021 divorce from Melinda Gates, it came to light that Bill repeatedly stalked and had affairs with female employees, both at Microsoft and at his foundation.

Musk, on the other hand, has always enjoyed playing the role of enfant terrible. He seeks publicity. He doesn't care about the personal sensitivities or private lives of others. Instead, he torments his employees with impossible deadlines and meetings in the middle of the night.

When Gates and Musk no longer had anything to prove to anyone in their business, they discovered a passion that unites them to this day: serving the good of humanity. Naturally, both claim a leadership role for themselves.

Gates, however, chose the far more conventional path. He wants to use his billions of philanthropic funds to solve current and concrete problems with proven methods. In the fight against diseases, he relies on vaccines, educational programs, and hygiene and sanitation measures.

Musk, on the other hand, thinks broader and more abstractly. His goal is to transform humanity into an interplanetary species. He believes that humanity can only survive if it inhabits multiple celestial bodies.

The topic is so preoccupying that he's already grappling with very specific questions. In meetings with the space agency NASA, a SpaceX customer, he's already pondering which factories will be needed on Mars in the future – and which goods will still have to be produced on Earth.

Bill Gates versus Elon Musk is much more than a battle between two extremely wealthy people with huge egos. It's a symbol of the rift in the United States: a clash between two ideas about how the world should function.

Gates represents the well-known, institutional path. Musk, on the other hand, embodies Trumpian disruption and the radical application of the principle of trial and error.

Even when children's lives are at stake.