Tesla (TSLA) CEO, Elon Musk, doesn’t miss a chance to have a little spat with the Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates. There is a whole background to it that we will try to summarize below.
At its Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada, the US-based electric automaker rolled the first Tesla Semi-truck off the volume production line yesterday.
Finally, after several years of R&D, testing, and innovation, Tesla’s class-8 heavy-duty semi-truck has reached volume production. Back in March, Tesla updated that the factory for the Semi-truck is nearing completion. Now, the automaker has started volume production.
Tesla announced this achievement on the Musk-owned social media platform X. “First Semi off high volume line,” the automaker stated on X, while sharing the following picture that shows Giga Nevada employees celebrating at the factory.
Tesla did not share how many Semi-trucks this volume production line can deliver in a week. However, this looks like a good head start in the right direction, as the automaker has thousands of pre-orders for the Semi, piling up over the years.
Back to Musk vs Gates. Actually, Bill Gates once visited Tesla’s Giga Nevada factory along with Elon Musk. In a one-on-one conversation during the visit, Bill Gates expressed that a long-range electric semi-truck is not possible to produce.
“It’s impossible to have a long-range semi-truck. It doesn’t work,” said Gates.
Elon replied: “We literally have them. Drive one yourself. Pepsi is using them right now“. To which Gates kept saying, “No, it doesn’t work”.
Musk told the story of this visit during a podcast hosted by Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, and David Friedberg last year. Musk thinks that Bill Gates is not good at scientific knowledge.
Bill Gates visited Elon at the Tesla Giga Texas factory and told him straight up: "It’s impossible to have a long-range semi-truck. It doesn’t work"
— X Freeze (@XFreeze) February 8, 2026
Elon replied: "We literally have them. Drive one yourself. Pepsi is using them RIGHT NOW"
Gates just kept saying: "No, it doesn't… pic.twitter.com/rKD4NzXQXu
As the news of the start of volume production came out, Tesla CEO Elon Musk threw a light-hearted taunt at Bill Gates.
“Should we give Billy G a Semi? ;),” he wrote on X. He received some interesting replies.
“No, he doesn’t deserve it and is likely still a massive short seller,” Tesla influencer and blogger Alex Avoigt replied.
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