FX.co ★ Musk turns down Gates on climate change collaboration

According to CNBC, Elon Musk refused to discuss philanthropy possibilities with Bill Gates because the latter was short-selling Tesla shares.

Earlier, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX blamed the Microsoft founder for having a massive short position against the electric carmaker. Musk asked Gates whether he had a half-billion-dollar short position against Tesla. Gates replied that he had not closed it yet and offered to discuss the possibility of climate change collaboration.

“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 fired back.

On Twitter, the founding father of Tesla confirmed that the screengrab of his conversation with Gates was real but said he did not leak it. As a reminder, when investors short-sell a stock, they are betting that the price of an asset will fall. So, they borrow the shares of stock from a broker, sell them, and buy them back when the price goes down to return to the owner. This is what is called being short.