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Bill Gates says Elon Musk couldn't be confused with Steve Jobs and that electric cars are 'far easier' than other climate change technology

Bill Gates
Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
  • Bill Gates doesn't think it's fair to call Elon Musk "the next Steve Jobs," the billionaire philanthropist said during an interview on Bloomberg TV Thursday.

  • When asked by Bloomberg's Erik Schatzker if Musk was indeed the next Jobs, Gates replied: "If you know people personally, that kind of gross oversimplification seems strange. Elon’s more of a hands-on engineer; Steve was a genius at design and picking people and marketing. You couldn’t walk into a room and confuse them with each other."

  • Gates said he has tremendous respect for Musk and praised Tesla's product, but also said, "the difficulty on the other areas [of the battle against climate change] is much higher. I’m not trivializing in any way the need to raise the market share of [electric vehicles], but on a relative basis, that's far easier than the industrial economy where our progress is very, very small."

  • Tesla shares have surged in recent months, tripling Musk's net worth as well.

  • Gates refused to chime in on whether Tesla's stock is overvalued, saying "the questions of what’s the proper per car and what’s the market share of Tesla — that’s for stock people, that’s not a climate change issue at all."

  • Gates' remarks are the latest in a series of digs the two billionaires have taken at each over the past six months, including when Musk tweeted that his conversations with Gates have been "underwhelming" and Gates said Musk's "positioning is to maintain a high level of outrageous comments," Business Insider previously reported.

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Related: Why hydrogen cars will be Tesla's biggest threat

Read the original article on Business Insider