Elon Musk next Steve Jobs? Bill Gates explain why you shouldn’t confuse them with each other

For those who probably wonder if Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is the next Steve Jobs for his companies’ advancements in designing and building reusable rockets and electric vehicles, Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates opines that one shouldn’t confuse between two tech icons. “Elon’s more of a hands-on engineer. Steve was a genius at design and picking people and marketing. You wouldn’t walk into a room and confuse them with each other,” Gates told Bloomberg. In fact, Gates who worked alongside Steve Jobs and other tech leaders, said that “If you know people personally, that kind of gross oversimplification seems strange.”

The differences between Gates and Musk towards their perspectives on various things have been known in public. For instance, Gates in August had written in his blog post that EVs can be a great option for short-haul travel but they will “probably never be a practical solution for things like 18-wheelers, cargo ships, and passenger jets.” Musk had responded to Gates comments on Twitter earlier this month saying that “he has no clue” about powering electric trucks. Gates also hit back at Musk when he called California’s pandemic stay-at-home orders “fascist” on Tesla’s earnings call in April, CNBC reported. Gates told CNBC in July that “Elon’s positioning is to maintain a high level of outrageous comments. He’s not much involved in vaccines. He makes a great electric car. And his rockets work well. So, he’s allowed to say these things. I hope that he doesn’t confuse areas he’s not involved in too much.

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As of September 20, 2020, Bill Gates was $15 billion richer than Elon Musk. While Musk’s net worth stood at $107 billion and was the third richest person, Gates was the second richest with a net worth of $122 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos remained the richest person on earth with $175 billion net worth while India’s Mukesh Ambani was the sixth richest with $88.3 billion net worth.