Elon Musk Warns Bill Gates Will Be 'Obliterated'

Betting against Tesla is a losing game, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated on Tuesday.

Following a significant stock surge, Musk targeted rival mogul Bill Gates while expressing confidence that the company’s future will be even brighter.

“Once Tesla fully solves autonomy and has Optimus in volume production, anyone still holding a short position will be obliterated. Even Gates,” Musk posted on X.

Optimus is a robot Tesla is developing, which Musk has claimed could make his company worth $25 trillion when it hits the market, according to Forbes.

In 2022, Musk disclosed that Gates was short-selling Tesla stock, a tactic investors use when they expect a stock price to drop. In a series of texts, Musk chastised Gates for this strategy.

“Sorry, but I cannot take your philanthropy on climate change seriously when you have a massive short position against Tesla, the company doing the most to solve climate change,” Musk wrote, as reported by Fortune.

On Tuesday, Musk revealed that Tesla's deliveries dropped less than expected in the second quarter of the year, as reported by CNBC.

The company exceeded Wall Street estimates by selling 443,956 vehicles in the second quarter, marking a 4.8 percent decline from 2023, a much smaller drop compared to the 8.5 percent dip in the first quarter.

This led to a 17 percent stock increase, costing short sellers, including Gates, a potential $3.5 billion, according to data from S3 Partners.

In April, betting against Musk seemed like a smart move when the stock hit its lowest point, but since then, Tesla’s stock price has risen by 73 percent.

In the second quarter, Tesla offered several incentives to buyers.

“Clearly the financing promos on both the Model Y and Model 3 drove considerable volume growth, but as we have seen with other sizable price cuts and discounts, demand is pulled forward and new demand must be created in 3Q and beyond, which has proven challenging over the last 18 months,” Ronald Jewsikow, an analyst at Guggenheim Partners, wrote in a client note on Wednesday.

As Tesla strives to dominate the increasingly competitive EV market, Musk is looking beyond cars, focusing on the development and marketing of the Optimus humanoid robot and a “CyberCab” robotaxi, as reported by Fortune.