Bill Gates on Elon Musk: 'I will try to cooperate with him'

Bill Gates is doing the rounds speaking to European media about his new memoir, and made some bold comments about Tesla founder Elon Musk when interviewed by Sweden's biggest newspaper Dagens Nyheter this week.

"I'm trying to understand why Elon Musk does everything he does now. But I don't know."

"He has been nice to me sometimes, mean to me sometimes"

In the interview, Bill Gates is polite about the Tesla founder, acknowledging his achievements with Tesla's push for electric vehicles, SpaceX's cost reduction in space travel, and Starlink's global internet connectivity efforts.

"He has been nice to me sometimes, mean to me sometimes. I will try to cooperate with him because he is brilliant, rich, has influence", Gates says.

Political disagreements

The relationship between the two tech titans has been strained, with Musk repeatedly targeting Gates on social media. Their friction initially stemmed from Gates' decision to short Tesla stock, but has since evolved into broader political disagreements.

In the Swedish interview, Gates also references Musk's challenging childhood as described in Walter Isaacson's biography:

"Maybe he wants to prove his father wrong," Gates says.

The Microsoft co-founder also revealed he had recently met with former President Donald Trump: "I travelled down to meet Trump, and I wondered if Musk would be there. But it was just Trump, myself, and two staff members," Gates tells Dagens Nyheter.

Gates recently launched his new memoir Source Code: My Early Years which covers his first 25 years of life, including the founding of Microsoft. In the book, Gates opens up about his early years, discussing everything from his suspected autism to his experimentation with LSD, providing unprecedented insights into the formative years of one of tech's most influential figures.