- Musk targeted rival billionaires
Bill Gates andJeff Bezos in a series of tweets on Friday. - The
Tesla and SpaceX CEO said Gates' bet against Tesla was now worth as much as $2 billion.
Musk's tweets followed a poll asking his followers to decide whether they trusted "politicians" or "billionaires" less, with 76% of the 3.4 million respondents voting for "politicians."
Musk had earlier dared Democrat Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to ask her own followers the same question, while other followers wanted to know Musk's opinion of other billionaires.
Responding to conservative author Brigette Gamble's tweet that she did not trust Gates, Musk replied: "Since Gates still has a multi-billion dollar short position against Tesla while claiming to help with global warming, I guess I have some trust issues with him too."
He added in another reply that the short had been "$500M, but then Tesla went up a lot, so now it's $1.5B to $2B to close it out."
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 28, 2022
Shares in Tesla jumped more than 7% on Friday to $759.63, but are still down almost 37% this year.
Musk has previously railed against Gates for betting against Tesla stock. He said he has refused philanthropy from Gates, arguing that his short showed the Microsoft so-founder wasn't serious about fighting climate change.
Gates has implied but not directly admitted in interviews this year that he has bet against Tesla.
Musk was asked by another user if he thought Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was "(generally) a good person?"
"He's fine, I guess. Does seem like he's spending a lot of time in the hot tub these days," Musk tweeted. "If he wants to get to orbit, less partying and more work would be advisable," referring to the space race going on between the pair.
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 28, 2022
Bezos and Musk have been engaged in a 15-year feud, with the two setting up rival companies and reportedly arguing in private.