Bill Gates on Elon Musk feud and Jeffrey Epstein meetings

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In an interview with the Today programme, Bill Gates said that conspiracy theories about him are crazy and that being shouted at in public is awful. He told the BBC that he made a mistake by meeting Jeffrey Epstein and that he talked about the public criticism of him.

Bill Gates used to be the richest person in the world. The title is now held by Musk. The two men do not get along.

Last week, Mr Musk accused Mr Gates of being a short seller, a way of making money by betting that a company will lose value. Musk insulted Gates on the social networking site.

Mr Gates says there is no need for him to be nice to him.

Mr Musk has argued that shorting a company undermines Bill Gates environmental philanthropy.

Mr Gates said that he had not bet against climate change. I have a variety of ways to do that.

He did not agree with the idea that shortingTesla was harmful to the environment.

The popularity of electric cars will lead to more competition. There is a difference between companies becoming infinitely valuable and electric cars being adopted.

The board of the company accepted a bid from Mr Musk.

Mr Gates was asked what he thought of the deal and he said it could be worse. I have a wait and see attitude and it could be better.

Mr Gates has become a focus of conspiracy theories because of his interest in social media.

He has pumped billions into inoculation programmes around the world.

He has become the subject of claims that he is trying to track people through the jabs. Many of the theories were promoted on social media.

He says that it is so crazy that you almost have to laugh.

Do I really want to track people? I spend billions on vaccines, but I don't make money on them.

Mr Gates said he had been shouted at by conspiracy theorists.

Image source, NurPhoto

I have only recently been out in public, and some people yell at me that I am following them. That is an awful thing.

Last year, Mr and Mrs Gates announced that they were getting a divorce. The couple had been married for 27 years and had set up the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

My life is very different. The last one to leave for college was my kids. The divorce is very difficult. He says it was a tough year.

There were reports that Mr Gates had had an extra-marital affair. In March, Gates questioned why he had met with a convicted sex predator.

She told CBS in March that she did not like that he had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein.

Mr Gates said that he had a mistake talking with Epstein.

I made a mistake meeting with Jeffrey Epstein. Maybe her instincts on that were more keen than mine.

Any meeting I had with him could be seen as condoning his bad behavior. That was a mistake.