Bill Gates has opened up about his relationship with Elon Musk, saying that despite their differences he hopes to collaborate with his fellow billionaire.
“He’s been nice to me at times, and mean to me at times,” the Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist told The Independent. “I will try and work with him because he’s brilliant, he’s rich, he’s influential.”
Gates, 69, was considered the world’s richest person from 1995 to 2007 and from 2014 to 2017. Musk, 53, became the world’s richest person in 2021. Gates revealed that the two men have discussed philanthropy, with the Tesla and SpaceX CEO agreeing to join his Giving Pledge campaign and commit to donating a majority of his wealth to charitable causes.
However, they have also sparred in public, with Musk criticizing Gates for taking a short position on Tesla stock. He has also said Gates’s understanding of AI is “limited.”
Last week, Gates described Musk’s political activities as “insane s***.”
Speaking to The Independent ahead of the publication of his memoir Source Code, Gates said he admired Musk for many reasons. “I’m in awe of the great work he did at SpaceX and Tesla,” said Gates. “The fact that Tesla kind of forced the car industry to do great EVs is a gigantic contribution.”
However, he added that he was taken aback by the way Musk and other tech business leaders have embraced the new president, Donald Trump.
“I’m a little surprised at the variety of political views coming out of Silicon Valley,” admitted Gates. “Until about six years ago, other than Peter Thiel – who has a unique set of views that I don’t fully understand, but I don’t think they’re easy to characterize – I would have said it was a very left-of-center set of people, more like California is in general. So this phenomenon that a lot of people gave big money to Trump, and helped Trump, is a bit of a surprise to me.”
Gates revealed that he hadn’t seen Musk since Trump was re-elected, and joked that he had expected to run into him when he visited the then president-elect at Mar-a-Lago before Trump’s inauguration in January. “When I went down to see Trump, I wondered if Elon would be there, but it ended up being a meeting with just Trump and I and our two staff people,” said Gates.
In an exclusive extract from his new memoir, published by The Independent today, Gates opens up about the impact that being sent to therapy as a young child had on his life.
In the book, he speaks about coming to an understanding of his own neurodivergence, writing: “If I were growing up today, I probably would be diagnosed on the autism spectrum. In the time of my childhood, the fact that some people’s brains process information differently from others wasn’t widely understood.”
Gates told The Independent that he isn’t sure how having a diagnosis would have affected him, saying: “I probably would have also been labeled as having ADHD. Would taking ADHD medicines have made me smarter, or at least less troublesome? Hey, that would have been nice, [but] it’s hard to go back and know whether that’s helpful.”
Asked whether he has a message for children growing up today on the autism spectrum, Gates said: “I think the world is doing a much better job of saying, yes, you’re going to have challenges because of this thing, but also it’s a real strength. I mean, the ability to really focus in and learn complex things and commit your memory... the world is very complicated.
“It takes an incredible level of concentration to really push yourself and not be sloppy in your thinking. Kids who have this ability to focus and get interested in things, they’re the kids who, if you can latch them on to a job that connects to those interests, wow, they are going to be super-performers.”
He went on to say that he believes many top programmers are also neurodivergent: “Certainly, if you take the Microsoft super-high performers, the proportion of those who I would guess also fall into this category... I’d say at least a third of the super-good programmers I know are clearly on the spectrum, the same way that I am. Nowadays, at least for them, it’s not some negative label.”
