During a recent interview with the New York Times, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates shared a lot of criticism towards Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his work with the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk, for his part, responded with choice words towards Gates. 

Bill Gates on DOGE

In his NYT interview, Gates lamented the fact that funding has been cut for programs that are supposed to help children abroad. Referencing the DOGE cuts made to the money going to Gaza Province in Mozambique, Gates stated that the people doing the cutting are not the most knowledgeable. 

“They cut the money to Gaza Province in Mozambique. That is really for drugs, so mothers don’t give their babies H.I.V. But the people doing the cutting are so geographically illiterate, they think it’s Gaza and condoms. Will they go meet those babies who got H.I.V. because that money was cut? Probably not,” Gates noted, adding that there will be “millions of additional deaths of kids” because of the cuts.

The Microsoft cofounder also admitted that he was surprised at the cuts that the Trump administration has implemented through the guidance of DOGE. As per Gates, he expected U.S.A.I.D. to receive a cut of about 20%, but the administration cut far more. “The reductions to U.S.A.I.D. are stunning. I thought there’d be, like, a 20% cut. Instead, right now, it’s like an 80% cut. And yes, I did not expect that,” he said.

Gates and Musk

Considering the nature of the interview, it was no surprise that Elon Musk himself was brought up as a topic. When the Times noted that Musk was not giving much away to the needs of the world’s poor, Gates stated that the Tesla CEO was ultimately the one who pushed for the cuts on U.S.A.I.D.’s budget. These cuts, Gates argued, effectively involve Musk in the deaths of the world’s poorest children.

“Well, he’s the one who cut the U.S.A.I.D. budget. He put it in the wood chipper, because he didn’t go to a party that weekend… the world’s richest man has been involved in the deaths of the world’s poorest children,” Gates stated. Musk, in response, stated in a post on social media platform X that “Gates is a huge liar.”

Musk and Gates have not really gotten along, thanks in no small part to the Microsoft co-founder putting a $500 million short bet against Tesla. In Walter Isaacson’s Elon Musk biography, Gates stated that he was shocked that Elon Musk was super mean to him after the Tesla CEO found out that he shorted Tesla. “Once he heard I’d shorted the stock, he was super mean to me, but he’s super mean to so many people, so you can’t take it too personally,” Gates noted.

Tesla has been planning its launch of the Robotaxi ride-hailing suite for years, but now that the company is nearing the operation of a ride-hailing platform for the first time next month, more details are coming forward.

It appears that Tesla has codenamed the Robotaxi suite, along with its ride-hailing app, as ‘Alicorn,’ a mythical creature that combines the characteristics and features of both a unicorn and a pegasus. But why this name?

It potentially could be pointing toward the vehicle’s use as both a passenger car for personal use, as well as a way to bring in passive income, something CEO Elon Musk first talked about in April 2019 when he indicated your car could work while you sleep, bringing in between $10,000 and $30,000 annually.

This would all be earned by your car being used as a driverless Robotaxi.

Tesla doubles down on Robotaxi launch date, putting a big bet on its timeline

Project Alicorn and What It Means for the Robotaxi

The name Alicorn was not recognized until a decompilation of the Tesla mobile app by Tesla App Updates on X last night. Evidently, Tesla is preparing for the June launch of the Robotaxi by inputting some new features into the smartphone app, something that we reported on recently.

Tesla will not launch a Robotaxi app that operates separately from the standard app. Everything will be ingrained into the main Tesla app that you use to access your car.

In the bigger picture, Tesla adding these specific coding strings means that it is preparing for the launch of the Robotaxi ride-hailing service, something that it has reiterated for all of this year.

Tesla plans to launch the Robotaxi platform in Austin in June, which hints at the timing of the coding to be an indicator that the company is truly ready to get things moving. While the initial rollout will be conservative and will include between 10 and 20 cars, according to Musk, the company is certainly confident that more cities will be enabled later this year for Robotaxi operation.

Ultimately, most of the fleet would ideally be made up of cars that have been purchased by consumers.

Your Tesla as a Robotaxi

Specific coding within the decompiled version of the new Tesla app revealed the ability to call the vehicle owner, meaning Tesla is undoubtedly preparing for vehicles to be driven with operators but without any intervention. Full Self-Driving will take care of the driving.

🚨 As noted by @Tesla_App_iOS, alicorn_button_title_call_driver is present in the new app version’s coding.

This supports an idea Tesla revealed years ago, that people could use their cars to generate revenue by adding them to the Robotaxi platform. https://t.co/QguKUmFVOf pic.twitter.com/E0Otu5OxXV

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 7, 2025

The account explained it:

“You could turn on the rideshare option and start making money, and your car would pick people up and drop them off while you sit in the driver’s seat, but FSD would be doing all the work, and it would just send jobs to your car. Very similar to what you saw in the teaser video not that long ago. Customers would also have the ability to call the driver as well in this scenario.”

Eventually, Teslas will have no drivers and will only operate with Full Self-Driving as Robotaxi technology.

CEO Elon Musk hinted in an X post that Tesla is about to fix a Full Self-Driving driver monitoring annoyance.

When using Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite, the newest “Supervised” version allows drivers to use the vehicle without actually holding onto the steering wheel. However, a cabin-facing camera monitors the driver’s eyes, ensuring they are paying attention to the road and not abusing the suite’s capabilities.

If the vehicle recognizes multiple instances of drivers taking their eyes off the road, Full Self-Driving will be unavailable for the rest of the drive. Ending up in FSD fail is never a fun time.

However, there are some instances when the suite is perhaps a tad too critical of a driver and their eyes if they are not always looking at the road. For example, in a Tesla, adjusting things like the cabin temperature, the position of side mirrors, or even the speed offset requires the driver to take their eyes off the road for a short period of time — usually less than ten seconds.

If operating on FSD, the vehicle will alert you to look back at the road, even if you’re traveling at a low rate of speed and you only take a few seconds to adjust a setting.

During my weekend Demo Drive of the new Model Y, I experienced this:

🚨Here’s a good example of this:

I was adjusting the Autopilot speed offset and then checked back to the screen to see if anything changed.

As you can see, my eyes weren’t off the road very long before the vehicle said I needed to look out of the windshield again. https://t.co/0YKAJgXFB6 pic.twitter.com/YfiuChbDAr

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 6, 2025

It appears a change could be welcome by Musk, who agreed that the warning seems excessive. How it will be changed remains to be seen, but it seems safer to be adjusting settings while FSD is active as opposed to trying to do it while driving manually:

You’re right

— gorklon rust (@elonmusk) May 6, 2025

It is good that FSD operates cautiously, as plenty of people have abused its capabilities in the past. When accidents happen due to driver irresponsibility, Tesla is not liable, but media headlines paint the picture that driving the vehicles is dangerous. In reality, Teslas travel more miles without an accident than the national average.

Tesla Vehicle Safety Report shows Autopilot is 10x better than humans

The change would likely be welcomed by many drivers, who have also complained about driver monitoring giving warnings when doing something like taking a bite of food.