Speaking at the Wall Street Journal’s summit on Wednesday, Gates asked Elon Musk: “How does he feel about something? [on Twitter] who says “vaccines kill people” or that “Bill Gates follows people?”
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Bill Gates has warned that Elon Musk could worsen Twitter after Tesla’s chief executive promised to buy the social media company for $ 44 billion.
Speaking at the Wall Street Journal’s summit on Wednesday, Gates said it was unclear how Musk would change Twitter if he took over the property, while raising concerns about the spread of misinformation on social media platforms.
The co-founder of Microsoft acknowledged that Musk’s experience in other companies was impressive, hailing his time at the helm of Tesla and SpaceX as “mind-boggling.” Gates said he believes Musk has done a good job of bringing together a great team of engineers at these companies.
“I have some doubts that this will happen this time, but we must be open and never underestimate Elon,” he said.
The technology billionaire’s comments came after Musk accused him of shorting Tesla’s stock last month. Musk also tweeted a rude joke about Gates that CNBC decided not to publish. Gates said the insults didn’t bother him.
Gates, who has been replaced by Musk as the world’s richest man in recent years, has continued to question Musk’s goal with Twitter and whether his efforts to promote free speech are reasonable.
“How he feels about something [on Twitter] who says “vaccines kill people” or that “Bill Gates follows people?” Gates asked.
“What are his goals for what will be in the end?” Does this coincide with this idea of less extreme lies spreading so fast [and] strange conspiracy theories? Does he share that goal or not? ”Gates said.
A Musk spokesman did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Over the past few weeks, Musk has hinted at a number of ways he can look for ways to improve Twitter beyond promoting freedom of speech. Late Tuesday, for example, he suggested he could start charging companies a “light” fee for using the platform.
Fight against misinformation
Vaccine misinformation spread like wildfire on social media during the Covid-19 pandemic, with some mistakenly claiming that Gates somehow used vaccines to implant 5G chips in humans so he could track their whereabouts.
“It’s so unexpected and almost so weird,” Gates said. “Now that I’m back in the physical world, people are coming and shouting and protesting.”
He said it was “dangerous” for people to “reject” the key tool used to save lives, and believed that those with social media platforms had a role to play in ensuring effective sharing the truth.
Musk’s plan to buy Twitter has worried politicians around the world.
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“When you don’t have trusted leaders talking about vaccines, it’s quite difficult for the platform to work against it,” he admitted. “So I think we have a leadership problem and a platform problem.”
“The way you drive these platforms to spread the truth, not crazy things, requires some real invention,” Gates said.
“This is a huge problem in terms of the legitimacy of elections or medical innovations … all kinds of collective behavior,” he added.
The fact that information about the effectiveness of drugs can move quickly and cheaply should be a blessing to humanity, Gates said before continuing to call the hydroxychloroquine saga “crazy.”
“I can’t explain that,” he said. “I don’t think digital is responsible for this obsession with drugs that don’t work.
Gates said he plans to set up a 3,000-member social media unit to help spread accurate information about vaccines in the future. He stressed that “good messages” must be conveyed by people of trust in the community, such as political and ethnic leaders.
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