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Bill Gates has reignited an old dispute with Elon Musk by attacking his ambitions to reach Mars and suggesting that he should invest his money to save lives by investing in measles vaccines.
Gates, 67, said during a bbc interview posted on Friday that while Musk was making a positive impact on the world through Tesla, he did not consider him a true “philanthropist” like Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos and himself.
The Microsoft co-founder is famous for textbook philanthropy and established the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000 with the stated mission of improving healthcare and reducing poverty worldwide.
Asked by BBC journalist Amol Rajan if going to Mars was a good use of money, Gates said: “In my opinion, no.”
“Actually, it is quite expensive to go to Mars. You can buy measles vaccines and save lives for $1,000 per life saved,” he said, explaining that space travel is not a cost-effective way to save lives. ‘And then [that] it just grounds you, as in – don’t go to Mars.’
Bill Gates, 67, has criticized Elon Musk’s ambitions to reach Mars and suggested his money would be better used to save lives by investing in measles vaccines.
Musk has argued that it is important for the future of civilization that humans become ‘interplanetary’.
Gates has long been an advocate of investment in vaccines, suggesting on several occasions that pandemics and deadly diseases pose a great threat to the future of humanity.
He warned in 2015 during a TED talk that a virus like COVID-19 could be just around the corner.
By contrast, fellow billionaire Musk has argued that it is important for the future of civilization that humans become ‘interplanetary’. He founded SpaceX in 2002 with a mission to build spacecraft and send manned flights to Mars.
Gates, however, praised Musk’s intelligence and ambition, suggesting that one day he might enter the league of philanthropy giants, but his time was not now.
“I think one day he will join the ranks of philanthropists, using his wits,” Gates said of Musk. “Obviously things like Tesla are having a positive impact even without being a form of philanthropy. But at the end of the day, aside from going to Mars a few times, which might cost quite a bit, I don’t think he wants to spend it on himself.
SpaceX is already putting passengers into orbit and has reduced the cost of operating rockets by designing them in such a way that they can land again after takeoff, unlike traditional rockets. Musk has vowed to get to Mars within the next decade.
Musk and Gates have clashed before over the promise of hydrogen fuel cells. Musk has championed battery-powered electric cars, while Gates once promoted a tweet saying “cheap, clean hydrogen would be an energy breakthrough.”
Gates even shorted Tesla, causing it to benefit heavily from the car company’s plummeting share value last year. Musk previously said that Gates had a deficit of up to $2 billion against his company.
The Tesla and SpaceX founder also mocked Gates’ appearance in April last year, comparing him to the pregnant man emoji.
Not long after, Musk tweeted a ‘sigh’ in response to a link to a Breitbart article claiming the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donated “hundreds of millions of dollars” to numerous groups behind a campaign pushing advertisers to boycott Twitter if Musk took over.
The article said that the Gates Foundation donated to 11 of the 26 signatories to an open letter calling for the boycott. Musk formally acquired Twitter in October of last year, five months later.
SpaceX has reduced the cost of operating rockets by designing them in such a way that they can land again after takeoff.
Musk tweeted this dig at Bill Gates last year, comparing the Microsoft founder’s belly to that of the controversial pregnant man emoji.
Speaking with Chris Anderson, director of a TED conference, last April, Musk gave some insight into what it would actually be like to send humans to Mars.
Life “will be dangerous, narrow, difficult, hard work,” he said, adding that “it will be dangerous, narrow, difficult, hard work” for first-time visitors.
Musk estimates that a one-way ticket to Mars will cost the first generation of colonists $100,000, which he said was “relatively affordable for most people.”
During the BBC interview, Gates addressed a variety of topics, including how he became the target of COVID-19 conspiracy theories and allegations that he was friends with Jeffery Epstein. She also gave his take on Donald Trump’s re-election bid.
Asked if he considered himself frugal, he responded to allegations of hypocrisy over his use of a private plane while claiming to be a climate activist.
“I don’t fly commercial economy, and I fly in a private plane, so that’s extremely extravagant,” he told Rajan. “I wouldn’t travel the world as much as I do, and I do more than offset all of those emissions with things like paying for direct air capture, that’s over $9 million a year.”
She also said she doesn’t have a ‘giant wardrobe’ and doesn’t wear jewelry.
‘When I’m unwrapping a gift, I don’t take the wrapper, fold it up and reuse it. My grandmother never in her life threw a paper bag or any thread in a package. So by her standards, I’m crazy,” she admitted.
Gates is considered the sixth richest man in the world with a net worth of $106 billion, behind Musk and Jeff Bezos. He divorced his wife Melinda in May 2021 after 27 years of marriage. They are shown here in 2018.
The philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder has donated tens of billions of dollars to charitable causes and, through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, aims to eradicate infectious diseases such as polio and malaria.
Asked how close his foundation, which works with the World Health Organization, is to eradicating polio, he said there was a credible plan to do it in four years.
‘We only have a few hundred cases per year. And so, it’s magical if we can get to zero. We think we have a very credible plan to get it done in four years, but it’s been a lot harder than we expected,” Gates said.
His work on infectious diseases also made him the subject of conspiracy theories that he was somehow behind COVID.
‘During the pandemic, there were tens of millions of messages that I intentionally caused it, or that I’m tracking people. It is true that I am involved with vaccines, but I am involved with vaccines to save lives.’ he told the BBC.