Elon Musk has launched a series of social media attacks against Sir Keir Starmer in recent days amid an ongoing row over child sexual abuse.
The Prime Minister on Monday (January 6) accused the tech billionaire of “spreading lies and misinformation” after weeks of hostile tweets from one of US President-elect Donald Trump’s inner circle. Sir Keir is not the first person to clash with Mr Musk.
Fellow billionaire, Bill Gates, has been involved in an epic feud with Mr Musk which is reported to have ignited after two of the richest people on the planet met in 2022.
Musk is the richest, with a net worth of £338billion ($425.2bn), according to Forbes’ real time billionaires list.
Mr Gates, who has given away much of his fortune, appears sixteenth on the list with a fortune totalling £82.2bn ($103.4bn).
According to CNN, the founder of Microsoft visited Mr Musk in a bid to convince the entrepreneur to give away more of his money.
Citing a biography of Musk by Walter Isaacson, CNN reported that Gates texted Musk in a bid to influence his burgeoning philanthropic efforts.
Sources told Mr Isaacson that Mr Gates said his fellow billionaire had gone “too overboard” on saving humanity by populating Mars. Mr Gates reportedly found his thinking “bizarre”.
During their meeting, Mr Musk is reported to have dismissed “most philanthropy” as “bull****” and that Mr Gates could do more to tackle climate change by investing in his electric car company Tesla.
Mr Musk then challenged Mr Gates to explain why he had placed a bet against Tesla stock, hoping the car giant’s share price would drop.
Mr Gates is reported to have apologised, saying he did so because he believed he would make money by doing so.
Tesla’s founder told his biographer that he felt Mr Gates acted hypocritically in trying to make money betting on the failure of a company focused on manufacturing vehicles using sustainable energy.
Musk later texted Gates he couldn’t take his climate philanthropy seriously after the Microsoft founder reportedly told him he was still betting against Tesla.
Mr Musk then tweeted a photo of Mr Gates with a bulging stomach, mocking his appearance. Mr Gates, CNN reports, was “more gracious”, telling guests at a dinner in Washington DC that no one had done more to push the bounds of science and innovation in our time.
The feud was reignited in December last year when Mr Musk claimed Mr Gates’s reported short bet against Tesla could bankrupt the founder of Microsoft.
Musk tweeted: “If Tesla does become the world’s most valuable company by far, that short position will bankrupt even Bill Gates.”
But even before the meeting in 2022, Musk and Gates had sparred in public. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr Gates accused Mr Musk of making “a high level of outrageous comments” about the virus.
Mr Musk had appeared to downplay Covid’s severity, criticising orders to stay at home and claiming children were immune to the virus.
Tesla’s CEO told the New York Times, however, that his company was involved in making vaccine machines for the German biopharmaceutical giant, CureVac.
Climate has also been a bone of contention for two of the world’s richest men. Mr Gates told YouTuber Hugo Decrypte in 2022 that he gives a lot more to climate change than Mr Musk “or anyone else”, according to Business Insider.
Musk responded to the interview on X, with just one word: “Sigh”.
