SpaceX founder Elon Musk stirred the pot yet again after claiming that neither he nor his family would take a COVID-19 vaccine even if it was readily available.
The 49-year-old billionaire dropped the bombshell during a Monday appearance on the New York Times opinion podcast “Sway.”
“I’m not at risk, neither are my kids,” Musk told host Kara Swisher about the rationale behind his decision.
During the bizarre exchange, the Tesla CEO decried the nationwide lockdown as a “no-win situation” that has “diminished my faith in humanity.” Musk previously called widespread quarantines “unethical” and “de facto house arrest,” RT reports.
Instead of the current sweeping measures, the Boring Company boss suggested a more targeted lockdown where “anyone who is at risk” be “quarantined until the storm passes.”
Swisher criticized his suggestion, adding that humans could potentially die in the process.
“Everybody dies,” quipped Musk.
To emphasize the supposed ridiculousness of the quarantines, Musk boasted that SpaceX “didn’t skip a day” throughout the entire pandemic. “We had national security clearance because we were doing national security work,” he said. “We sent astronauts to the Space Station and back.”
Later on, the automotive mogul addressed Bill Gates’ criticisms of his skepticism toward the coronavirus, which Musk called “dumb” in March. During a CNBC interview in July, the Microsoft founder claimed that Musk didn’t know much about vaccines and said he hoped that the SpaceX head “doesn’t confuse areas he’s not involved in too much.”
“Gates said something about me not knowing what I was doing,” Musk told Swisher. “It’s like, ‘Hey, knucklehead, we actually make the vaccine machines for CureVac, that company you’re invested in.'” He was referring to the fact that Tesla manufactures equipment for the German biopharmaceutical firm CureVac.
This past July, the car magnate shaded Gates with a series of cryptic tweets that read, “Billy G is not my lover” and “The rumor that Bill Gates & I are lovers is completely untrue.”