Summary
Bill Gates criticized Elon Musk for his support of far-right politicians, including the UK’s Tommy Robinson and Germany’s AfD party, calling it “insane shit” and accusing Musk of destabilizing political systems.
Gates questioned Musk’s focus on divisive politics while managing global businesses like Tesla and SpaceX.
Gates also expressed concern about wealthy individuals influencing foreign elections.
Musk has faced backlash for controversial actions, including a Nazi salute.
Bill Gates has also been riding an unearned “genius” appellation for decades. He didn’t make DOS. (His charitable work on vaccination is also questionable - iirc there were concerns over intellectual property rights)
The tide is turning against billionaires, and he’s just recognizing that Musk is making them all look bad.
Gates had two lawyers for parents, one of whom served on a board of directors with the CEO of IBM. IBM had been continually fighting an antitrust suit with the government for years, so they knew they had to tread carefully with the operating system for their first personal computers. It’s no surprise they hired Gates to do that work. Also, because of the antitrust case, they directed Gates to buy QDOS instead of buying it themselves. As for the contract that gave Gates a very sweet deal when it came to selling DOS to for non-IBM computers… I wonder if his two lawyer parents might have been involved in that contract.