By Craig Trudell
Bill Gates paid
Tesla Inc. a compliment for coaxing the car industry to go electric. If he was expecting kind words in return from Elon Musk, he apparently shouldn’t have spoken about challenges that still lie ahead -- or about his new Porsche.
Gates, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft Corp., spoke with a YouTube influencer last week about the challenges of reducing emissions to slow climate change. He called the passenger-car industry “one of the most hopeful” sectors taking action in this regard.
“And certainly Tesla, if you had to name one company that’s helped drive that, it’s them,” Gates
told YouTuber Marques Brownlee.
Then Gates discussed recently buying a
Porsche Taycan. While he called the electric sports car “very, very cool,” he acknowledged its premium price -- the initial Turbo S models
start at $185,000 -- and said consumers still have to overcome anxieties about EVs offering limited range and taking longer to recharge. Gasoline-powered cars travel longer between quick refuels at stations that outnumber charging points.
When a Tesla enthusiast posted about being disappointed in Gates’s decision to buy a Taycan instead of a Tesla and his comments about range anxiety, Musk
replied: “My conversations with Gates have been underwhelming tbh.”
Musk, 48, is of course no stranger to tweeting dismissively about fellow billionaires. The Tesla chief executive officer questioned
Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s understanding of the risks of artificial intelligence
in 2017. Last year, he called Jeff Bezos a
copycat after the
Amazon.com Inc. CEO embarked on an internet-satellite project that could rival one that Musk’s closely held company
SpaceX is pursuing.
Every Time A Common Man Stood Up Against Elon Musk, Trump, Kohli
Big Fight In L’il Guy
4 Oct, 2019
For all his fame and money, Elon Musk is now trying to wriggle out of a defamation lawsuit filed by British diver Vernon Unsworth. The Tesla CEO had called him a ‘pedo guy’ in a tweet. A look at other times an average Joe went up against a famous name.
(Image: AFP)
Collision Course
4 Oct, 2019
In 2005, during an NBA match between the Memphis Grizzlies and Los Angeles Lakers, Kobe Bryant ran into the crowd while chasing down a loose ball. He collided with Bill Geeslin, an insurance agent, who was sitting courtside. Geeslin alleged “intentional forearming” by Bryant, which allegedly left him with a bruised lung cavity. Geeslin died two months after he deposed and his family sued Bryant for assault, battery and outrageous conduct for “an amount exceeding $75,000”. Bryant reached an out-ofcourt settlement in 2012.
Reverse Sexism
4 Oct, 2019
In October 2016, a lawsuit was filed in the San Jose District Court by a former employee of Yahoo alleging that CEO Marissa Mayer led a secret campaign to purge the company of male employees.
The lawsuit states that “Mayer encouraged and fostered the use of [an employee performancerating system] to accommodate management’s subjective biases and personal opinions, to the detriment of Yahoo’s male employees”.
A Yahoo spokesperson said that the lawsuit had no merit and the case was dismissed in March 2018. (Image: Reuters)
Clean Bowled
4 Oct, 2019
In 2018, Indian skipper Virat Kohli and wife Anushka Sharma posted a video on social media, in which Sharma is seen schooling a man sitting in a car not to litter on the road. The man, Arhan Singh, sued the couple for shaming him on social media. The video itself received mixed reactions, with some calling Sharma rude and others, like politician Kiren Rijiju, showing support for the cause of cleanliness.
No Immunity
4 Oct, 2019
In 2017, Summer Zervos filed a defamation suit against President Donald Trump. Zervos was a contestant on The Apprentice, which aired in 2006. Zervos said that she contacted Trump in 2007 for employment and upon meeting him was subjected to aggressive and non-consensual sexual behaviour. Trump denied the claims and said that Zervos was lying. In March, a New York appeals court rejected Trump’s argument that he is immune from state lawsuits and said that Zervos can proceed with her defamation lawsuit. Trump has been ordered to give a pretrial deposition before October 31. (Image: AP)