Bill Gates Bought an Electric Porsche Instead of A Tesla

While Tesla shares may be skyrocketing since the year began, billionaire Bill Gates didn’t opt to buy a Tesla when he went electric vehicle shopping. Gates, Microsoft co-founder, bought the new, fully electric Porsche Taycan.

His purchase inadvertantly set off a Twitter spat with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who then called his past conversations with Gates “underwhelming.” Musk tweeted this week, “My conversations with Gates have been underwhelming tbh.”

Gates revealed that he purchased the Porsche in an interview with popular YouTuber Marques Brownlee. Remarking that EV passenger cars are “one of the most hopeful” factors in bringing down the cost of environmentally friendly alternatives, Gates said, “Certainly Tesla, if you had to name one company that’s helped drive that, it’s them.” He then said, “I just got a Porsche Taycan.”

The Taycan is Porsche’s first all electric sports car and was introduced last September as a competitor to Tesla’s cars.

You will need to pay a start price of $150,900 for the Taycan Turbo, which is more than the $100,000 starting price for Tesla’s rival electric luxury sedan, the Model S. The Taycan has a 93-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack powering dual electric motors that allow the Turbo to go from 0 to 60 mph in three seconds with 616 horsepower. The Tesla Model S can go from 0 to 60 mph in only 2.5 seconds. The Taycan Turbo has an estimated range of 201 miles while Tesla’s Model S has 348 miles.

Disclaimer: We have no position in Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) and have not been compensated for this article.