Billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk again has the world atwitter.
The Tesla CEO, whose every word is being watched closely after he offered to buy Twitter, sent a short and cryptic tweet out early Sunday morning, which he answered hours later.
“Moving on …,” he said.
Musk later said his tweet was in reference to his confrontation with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates about short-selling shares of Tesla stock.
“(from making fun of Gates for shorting Tesla while claiming to support climate change action),” he said in a follow-up tweet.
(from making fun of Gates for shorting Tesla while claiming to support climate change action)
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 24, 2022
Musk sent a tweet late Friday after affirming the authenticity of a screenshot of a text message conversation he had with Gates, with side-by-side images of Gates and the pregnant man emoji, saying, “in case u need to lose a boner fast.”
In the text message exchange, Musk inquired if Gates still had a half-billion-dollar short position on Tesla. Gates said he had not closed out and said he wanted to discuss “philanthropy possibilities,” but Musk shut down the conversation. “Sorry, I cannot take your philanthropy on climate change seriously when you have a massive short position against Tesla, the company doing the most to solve climate change,” Musk said, according to the screenshot.
Gates has not yet issued a public statement on the text messages.
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As recently as Thursday, Musk submitted a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that said he is exploring a tender offer to acquire all outstanding shares of Twitter’s stock at $54.20 per share in cash with $46.5 billion in financing for the massive deal.
Musk had previously gone to Twitter’s board to ask to buy the company for $43 billion and take it private, but the board never responded to the offer and instead adopted a “poison pill” to prevent the Tesla founder from wresting control of the company.
