Elon Musk has accused Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates of shorting Tesla. In a tweet on Friday, the Tesla CEO admitted that he asked Gates if he was short-selling shares of the electric carmaker. When investors short a stock, they are betting that the price of the asset will fall.
The Tesla chief’s response was: “Yeah, but I didn’t leak it to NYT. They must have got it through friends of friends.” The account that inquired about the text messages, ”@wholemarsblog” heavily promotes Tesla and Elon Musk, and is among the few handles that Elon Musk most interacts with on Twitter.
The person who runs @wholemarsblog, Omar Qazi, is a co-defendant with Elon Musk in a libel and harassment lawsuit brought by Aaron Greenspan, founder of the public records database Plainsite, who has also shorted Tesla stock and been a vocal critic of Elon Musk.