Bill Gates reportedly spent hundreds of millions of “dark money” to attack Elon Musk. Here’s how Musk responded

The feud between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates reaches a public breaking point today after a new revelation that Gates was behind millions of”dark money funds” to bring down Elon Musk.

According to an exclusive report by Breitbart, “hundreds of millions of dollars flowed from Bill Gates’ foundation to 11 of the 26 organizations that signed an open letter last month urging Twitter advertisers to boycott the company if Elon Musk restores free speech on the platform.”

The report is based on research and analysis from the Foundation for Freedom Online (FFO), a newly-formed organization that analyzed public filings to trace hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions from the letter signatories back to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Not long ago, Musk asked his 94 million Twitter fans to uncover the funding behind the 26 nonprofit organizations that signed an intimidation letter threatening to destroy the company’s advertising revenue if Musk reversed its censorship policies.

The news about the report was later shared on Twitter. However, Musk appears not to be surprised about the report. “What a dick move,” Musk tweeted in a response to the report.

What a dick move!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 24, 2022

One of Musk’s fans said that maybe Gates is still mad at Musk for the comments he made about him back in April.
Gates’ $500 million short position against Musk-owned Tesla, prompted Musk to call Gates a “b*ner” killer alongside a meme of Gates as a pregnant man emoji.

https://twitter.com/kristina_wong/status/1529100111619534851

It all started in April after Musk said that Gates had reached out to him to support his foundation’s effort in combating climate change. Musk later revealed that he had “heard from multiple people at TED that Gates still had half-billion short against Tesla.”

Yeah, but I didn’t leak it to NYT. They must have got it through friends of friends.

I heard from multiple people at TED that Gates still had half billion short against Tesla, which is why I asked him, so it’s not exactly top secret.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 23, 2022

Musk confronted Gates asking him if had ever shorted Tesla. Gates later confessed to shorting Tesla stocks.  In a text exchange, which can not be independently verified, Musk asked Gates: “Do you still have a half-billion-dollar short position against Tesla?”

To which Gates replied: “Sorry to say I haven’t closed it out. I would like to discuss philanthropy possibilities.”

Musk shot back: “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.

So apparently Bill Gates hit up @elonmusk to discuss “philanthropy on climate change” but Elon asked if he still had a half billion dollar short position on $TSLA.

Bill said he hasn’t closed it out, so Elon told him to get lost. No idea if this is true lol pic.twitter.com/iuHkDG3bAd

— Whole Mars Catalog (@WholeMarsBlog) April 22, 2022

Meanwhile, in total, 11 of the 26 anti-Musk organizations received funding from a Gates-backed entity. Below is how Breitbart explains the funding:

“The New Venture Fund, which in 2020 received the largest one-year commitment the Gates Foundation had made in more than half a decade, funds four of the signatories:

The Center for Media Justice
The Media Democracy Fund
The National Hispanic Media Coalition (via the Media Democracy Fund)
Accountable Tech
The Tides Foundation, also a recipient of Gates Foundation money, funds five of the signatories:

Free Press
Indivisible
NARAL Pro-Choice America
Media Matters
Black Lives Matter Global Network
Two other signatories are tied to Gates Foundation money:

Empowering Pacific Islanders Community (funded by Gates-backed Community Partners)
Reproaction (a project of Gates-backed NEO Philanthropy)”