Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft has warned that his billionaire rival Elon Musk could potentially make Twitter a worse platform – and refused to say whether or not he shorted Tesla, as Musk has alleged.
On Wednesday, Gates spoke at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit and was asked about Musk’s potential impact on Twitter following his $44 billion acquisition of the social media platform last month.
Gates said that while Musk has a good track record, he could make misinformation on the platform worse.
‘He actually could make it worse,’ Gates said. ‘That’s not his track record. His track record with Tesla and Space X is pretty mind-blowing at putting together a great team of engineers and taking people who work in those fields in a less bold way and really showing them up. I kind of doubt that’ll happen this time but we should have an open mind and never underestimate Elon.’
But Gates did question Musk’s intentions with the app.
The South African-born billion has said his purchase of Twitter is motivated primarily by a wish to restore the app as a place for the free exchange of ideas, and has repeatedly said he wants to move away from ‘censorship’ and err on the side of free speech.
Musk, who calls himself a free speech absolutist, has criticized Twitter’s moderation policies.
‘You know, what’s his goal?’ Gates asked. ‘When he talks about the openness, how does he feel about something such as “vaccines kill people” or that “Bill Gates is tracking people” is that one of the things he feels should be spread? so It’s not totally clear what he is going to do.’
‘Are his goals for what it ends up being, does it match this idea of less extreme falsehoods spreading so quickly, weird conspiracy theories, does he share that goal or not?’ Gates pondered.
Gates also added that he has not taken Musk’s recent tweets about him personally.