Bill Gates tells Elon Musk that he should forget about space travel and focus on vaccines



The continuing feud between billionaires Elon Musk and Bill Gates entered a new chapter this week. Gates criticized Musk for utilizing his vast fortune on space travel and not for what he considers more philanthropic causes such as vaccines.

Gates, who is the sixth-richest person on the planet with a net worth of $105 billion, took issue with the fellow billionaire's desire to send people to Mars.

In an interview with the BBC, the 67-year-old Microsoft co-founder was asked if he would encourage Musk to join his "club of mega-philanthropists." The group is a reference to The Giving Pledge – a campaign founded by Gates, his ex-wife Melinda French Gates, and billionaire investor Warren Buffett for "philanthropists to give the majority of their wealth to charitable causes, either during their lifetimes or in their will."

"I think some day he'll be a great philanthropist," Gates said of Musk, adding, "Things like Tesla are having a positive impact even without being a form of philanthropy."

BBC broadcaster Amol Rajan asked Gates if space travel to Mars was a wise use of money, and he replied, "Not in my view."

Gates said that there are "definitely" more pressing issues on Earth to focus on.

Gates noted, "It's actually quite expensive to go to Mars."

Instead of space travel, Gates told Musk to focus his vast resources on vaccines.

"You can buy measles vaccines and save lives for a thousand dollars per life saved," Gates said. "It just kind of grounds you. Don’t go to Mars."

Musk, who is the second-wealthiest person in the world with a net worth of $184 billion, has yet to respond publicly to the comments made by Gates.

Musk and Gates have not enjoyed the rosiest of relationships dating back to a proposed first meeting years ago.

Several years ago, Gates wanted to meet Musk to discuss "philanthropy possibilities," according to purported text messages between the billionaires. However, Musk found out that Gates was betting against Tesla's stock he and reportedly canceled the meeting at the last minute. Musk seemed to indicate that the text messages unveiled last year were authentic.

Last April, Musk trolled Gates by comparing the Microsoft co-founder with a pregnant man emoji.

During the recent BBC interview, Gates was also asked about being linked to COVID-19 pandemic conspiracy theories.

Gates replied, "I did not expect that. During the pandemic, there were tens of millions of messages that I intentionally caused it, or I'm tracking people. It's true I'm involved with vaccines, but I'm involved with vaccines to save lives."

He added, "These messages sort of inverted that. I guess people are looking for the 'boogeyman' behind the curtain, the over-simplistic explanation. Malevolence is a lot easier to understand than biology."

Last March, Gates said links to him and COVID-19 pandemic conspiracy theories are "tragic."

Gates was also asked about his connection to a convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Gates said, "I'm certainly more careful now than back when I did that. I'll do a little more due diligence. I may make a mistake again. I'm out in the world, and I'm not trying to be a recluse."

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Bill Gates – who caught COVID despite 4 shots – says people over age 50 need vaccine boosters every 6 months, calls popular conspiracy theory about him 'tragic'



Bill Gates – the software developer – continued his media blitz to promote his new book about how he believes the world could prevent the next pandemic. Gates' latest appearance was on CNN – where he called for people over the age of 50 to get COVID-19 vaccine boosters every six months. The Microsoft co-founder also presented his thoughts regarding a popular conspiracy theory about him.

Gates, 66, revealed last week that he was infected with COVID.

"I've tested positive for COVID. I'm experiencing mild symptoms and am following the experts' advice by isolating until I'm healthy again," Gates wrote on Twitter. "I'm fortunate to be vaccinated and boosted and have access to testing and great medical care."

Gates caught COVID despite receiving four doses of the vaccine – two original doses and two booster shots.

CNN host Anderson Cooper told Gates that he had "only gotten three shots total," but had also been infected with COVID-19 in April.

Cooper asked the software developer, "So I've been trying to figure this out for myself, but I assume you know the answer to this, so I'll just ask you, when do you get boosted again?"

Gates responded, "Yeah, so an infection where you'll get a high viral load would be like vaccination, but you know to be safe, every six months you're probably going to be vaccinated."

“For people who are 50 or 60, they will probably have to be boosted every six months until we get even better vaccines,” Gates said during a Friday night appearance on "AC360."

"As we get more data, they might even make that shorter for people, you know, say 60 or over 70, where the duration seems to be a bit lower," Gates continued. "So we're in for ongoing vaccination to stay absolutely safe."

Bill Gates: For people over 50 or 60, they'll probably have to get boosted every 6 months until we get even better vaccines; so we're in for ongoing vaccination to stay absolutely safe...pic.twitter.com/zqHXbCPzkK
— Wittgenstein (@Wittgenstein) 1652611094

Cooper also asked Gates about the popular conspiracy theory that has plagued him over the years.

In the late spring of 2020, unsubstantiated rumors began circulating that the COVID-19 vaccine had tracking microchips in it, and that the Gates Foundation was spending billions of dollars to ensure that all medical procedures implanted microchips into patients.

A YouGov poll from May 2020 found that 28% of Americans believed that "Bill Gates wants to use a mass vaccination campaign against COVID-19 to implant microchips in people that would be used to track people with a digital ID."

The conspiracy theory of Gates using COVID-19 vaccines and medical procedures to implant microchips has been debunked by PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, Reuters, and the BBC.

Cooper told Gates, "You rightly champion [the vaccine], obviously it’s a wonder of modern science, but there's this paradox that the speed at which it was created also increased perhaps some hesitancy, and I guess and has fueled these conspiracy theories.”

Cooper then asked, "How do you deal with conspiracy theories? People believe you're tracking people through microchips inserted into the vaccine."

Gates responded, "Simple explanations are kind of fun to click on. The one about tracking people, I don’t know why they think I’m interested in knowing people’s locations."

He added, "If it's holding people back from getting vaccinated, then that's tragic."

On the topic of COVID vaccine hesitancy, Gates said, "Well, the hesitancy did go down somewhat, you know, initially it was like at 60% of the population, but as they saw their friends getting vaccinated and very rare side effects, as they saw their friends being protected and the people with severe disease were overwhelmingly the unvaccinated, most people came around."

"Now, the U.S. still has a lower full vaccination rate than many other countries, so we still need to figure out: Who do those people trust? Are they open-minded? Because it's to their benefit and to the people around them," he continued. "So I'm surprised that the U.S., it's been this tough, and, you know, even somewhat a political thing."

Gates addressed another conspiracy theory that he is pushing vaccines to make a profit.

"You know, we've given billions for vaccines and saved millions of lives," he stated. "If you just kind of invert that and say, 'No, we’re trying to make money from vaccines, you know, not trying to save lives,' that’s a popular conspiracy theory."

Earlier this month, Gates made headlines for admitting that COVID is "kind of like flu." He also conceded that the vaccines are "imperfect in two very important ways."