Elons positioning is to maintain a high level of outrageous comments, Hes not much involved in vaccines. He makes a great electric car. And his rockets work well. So hes allowed to say these things. I hope that he doesnt confuse areas hes not involved in too much.

Thats Microsoft MSFT, -1.50% co-founder Bill Gates explaining to CNBC why Tesla TSLA, +0.13% boss Elon Musk should perhaps focus on his job and let the experts focus on theirs.

Musk has courted controversy ever since the coronavirus first broke out across the U.S., having suggested deaths have been overcounted and lockdowns were unnecessary. He also called Californias approach to combatting coronavirus fascist and drew an F-bomb from a politician.

Gates pointed out that facts travel slowly across social media compared with misinformation, which poses a challenge to Facebook FB, -0.84% and Twitter TWTR, -0.11% .

When you let people communicate, you have to deal with the fact that certain incorrect things that are very titillating can spread very rapidly compared to the truth. And weve always seen that with vaccines, Gates, whos been the subject of conspiracy theories, told CNBC. To the degree to which these media companies can see whats being said on their platform and take things that are absolutely wrong and get rid of those things or slow those things down, thats very tough.

Heres a clip from the interview:

Meanwhile, the number of U.S. cases rose to 4.29 million and the death toll hit 148,056. Texas became the fourth state with more than 400,000 cases, joining California, Florida and New York. The global tally for confirmed cases of COVID-19 climbed to 16.5 million on Tuesday, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, while the death toll rose to 654,327.

However, Gates offered up an optimistic take in the interview.

You can see the therapeutic benefit faster than the protective benefit, he said So I think theres a good chance well have substantial death-rate reduction by the end of the year.

He did, however, admit hes worried the public is concerned about the safety of the first vaccine.

Hopefully theyll look to the facts, understand the values of the people that theyre thinking about and understand that were in this together and we need to protect each other with masks and eventually probably with herd immunity with a vaccine, he said

As for the stock market on Tuesday, Tesla shares opened lower, as the Dow DJIA, +0.61% , S&P SPX, +0.36% and Nasdaq COMP, +0.35% all drifted into the red.

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Bill Gates on Elon Musks controversial coronavirus comments: Stick with electric cars and rockets - MarketWatch