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Bill Gates follows Musk into cleantech with $1 billion Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund
Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder, is joining a cleantech fund that will invest in companies developing low-cost, low-carbon technologies. The announcement comes as Tesla, which over the past year and a half has evolved from a premium electric car maker into a multifaceted sustainable energy company, is at the pinnacle of cleantech innovation and investment. In fact, Tesla, has continually modeled how sustainable energy generation, and storage, can both revolutionize global energy consumption and be a profitable business venture.
The Gates fund, called Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), intends to provide reliable and affordable power without contributing to climate change. Their goals are to address emissions in five key areas: electricity, transportation, agriculture, manufacturing, and buildings. “Many people aren’t willing or able to pay a huge premium (for clean energy), beyond what they pay for hydrocarbon energy,” Gates stated. “The way you get to success is to get lower carbon energy at a lower cost.”
Gates added that he and other investors, who include Amazon.com chief executive Jeff Bezos, LinkedIn chairman Reid Hoffman, Alibaba chairman Jack Ma, and retired hedge fund manager John Arnold, hope to convince the Trump administration to maintain or increase government funding for energy research and development. “It’s a fantastic investment, even if you don’t look at the climate change piece of this.”
Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, on the other hand, has never dismissed the importance of accelerating the advent of sustainable energy as integral to continued healthy life on the planet. He understands that runaway global warming is an existential threat to Earth-based human civilization. He acknowledges readily that “virtually all scientists agree that dramatically increasing atmospheric and oceanic carbon levels is insane” and has been a vocal proponent of the intersection of technology, alternative energy investments, and worker training for a stable energy future with the incoming Trump administration.
With the launch of Tesla’s battery business and the recent acquisition of the SolarCity, the nation’s leading rooftop solar installer, Tesla is already immersed in most of the capital ventures that Gates’ BEV group is targeting. Musk has led a renewable energy enterprise network of companies, so that solar roofs are seamlessly integrated with battery storage systems. In essence, Tesla’s multiple energy interfaces have the capacity to turn individuals into their own utilities, decentralizing energy conglomerates while reducing carbon emissions from the atmosphere.
The Gates’ BEV group acknowledges that moving into the arena of renewable energy is likely fraught with challenges. Concerns particularly surround investing in early-stage companies against the backdrop in which fund investors expect to make a profit. “Some of these investments will result in ideas that move forward and some won’t; developing some may even make work on others unnecessary,” they outline. “The Breakthrough Energy Coalition believes, though, that all of them are avenues worth investigating to get the world to a zero-emissions future. Nobody knows yet what the energy mix of tomorrow is, so investors need to explore all possible paths.”
The lure of opportunities in the U.S. $6 trillion global energy market drives the BEV group forward, hoping their U.S. $1 billion cleantech fund will circumvent the tenuous nature of technology startups. Tech startups have highest rate of failure among all industries mainly due to number of uncertainties that come with launching a new yet unproven company.
Meanwhile, Tesla, with its years of R&D, is moving ahead with plans for an expanded vehicle product line that includes heavy-duty trucks and large passenger transport vehicles. Musk wants to expand Tesla’s line to “cover the major forms of terrestrial transport,” which are, in short, trucks, busses, and a ride-sharing system based on full self-driving capabilities.
If you’re interested in seeing how the BEV group’s vision compares to Tesla’s, download their mission statement here.
News
Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile are trying to shut Starlink out before FCC vote
AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile want 290 MHz cut from an FCC satellite plan before Thursday.
AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile are asking the Federal Communications Commission to pull nearly 300 MHz of spectrum out of a proposal that would let satellite companies like SpaceX offer cell service directly to ordinary phones. The request lands one day before the agency votes on it.
The FCC will vote Thursday, October 29, on a notice of proposed rulemaking that would make an additional 482 MHz available for direct to device service, expanding the number of eligible bands from five to 13, according to the FCC fact sheet. It would also scrap the rule requiring a satellite operator to lease spectrum from carriers, replacing it with a certification that the operator has coexistence agreements in place or holds the terrestrial license itself.
That second path matters for SpaceX. As Teslarati reported earlier this month, SpaceX agreed to buy Grain Management’s nationwide 800 MHz portfolio to turn Starlink Mobile into a full US carrier, adding to the spectrum it already bought from EchoStar.
The carriers want two bands removed, 2.5 GHz and 3.45 GHz, which make up 290 MHz of the 482 MHz on the table. Through industry group CTIA, they argued that about 300 million users depend on those bands and that satellite operations in them are not technically feasible. T-Mobile, which calls 2.5 GHz the foundation of its Ultra Capacity 5G network, said in its own filing that satellite interference could wipe out up to 96% of a cell site’s uplink coverage area and cut uplink speeds by 88% to 99%.
Executives from all three carriers met with FCC staff on October 20, and T-Mobile CEO Srini Gopalan met separately with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. T-Mobile’s role stands out because it is still SpaceX’s US launch partner for Starlink Mobile. The three carriers have also teamed up on their own satellite joint venture to pool spectrum, a move widely seen as a response to Starlink.
SpaceX is asking for the opposite. In an October 23 filing after meetings with FCC staff and commissioners’ offices, the company asked regulators to add the 902 to 928 MHz band to the proposal. “Doing so now saves time later,” SpaceX wrote. The company also asked the FCC to modernize interference rules and align satellite deployment requirements with those for terrestrial cell networks, saying the goal is to let satellite and ground networks work together so Americans stay connected wherever they are.
The carriers have not been shy about how they view SpaceX as a competitor. On Verizon’s third quarter earnings call Monday, its chief executive said Starlink Mobile “just can’t compete with a terrestrial network” and estimated SpaceX would need four to six years and $300 billion to $500 billion to build a full US carrier network.
Thursday’s vote will not settle which bands survive. Adopting the notice opens a public comment period, with final rules to come later in the proceeding. The FCC already considered and rejected 2.5 GHz for satellite coverage once, in 2024. SpaceX also is not the only satellite player watching: the FCC approved Amazon’s $11.6 billion acquisition of Globalstar on October 27, giving its planned direct to device fleet its own mobile satellite spectrum.
A Tesla Semi caught fire in Hayward, California, which caused both directions of traffic to shut down for hours before being completely reopened early on Wednesday, the California Highway Patrol said.
The fire occurred just after 5:30 local time in Hayward on Tuesday, as the Semi caught fire in the southbound lanes of I-880 before CHP officials made the decision to shut down both lanes of traffic due to potential risks from hazardous chemical smoke.
There were no injuries reported.
🚨 A Tesla Semi reportedly caught fire, with California Highway Patrol confirming. The Semi was on I-880 SB
An estimated 5,000 to 7,000 semi-truck and large commercial vehicle fires occur on U.S. roadways every year
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2026
The cause of the fire is currently unknown, as neither Tesla nor the CHP have not determined a cause.
However, some images taken before the Semi was completely destroyed by the fire seem to indicate this might have been an older unit, as it appears to be one of the designs that Tesla shipped as part of its pilot program, before revising it and starting mass production just a month ago.
@Tslachan From on of the videos looks like it’s an old Semi (not the refresh version that recently started production) https://t.co/KzwmR2kXow
— Area Under The Curve 🎗️ (@AreaUnderCurve) October 28, 2026
At the time of publication, CHP had not returned our request for a comment for additional details, including the Semi involved and any potential collaboration on an investigation between the CHP and Tesla. We will update this story when we hear back from them.
The southbound lanes were reopened at 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday, with the northbound lanes opening last night a few hours after the fire began. The CHP did state that the lithium batteries were “incredibly difficult to extinguish,” according to NBC Bay Area.
The truck’s driver said that the Semi caught fire, but he did not have an explanation.
An estimated 5,000 to 7,000 semi-truck and large commercial vehicle fires occur on U.S. roadways every year.
Tesla’s launch of the “Emergency Drive Away” function a few months back offered owners a safe option to evacuate an area if they were in reasonable danger. The function finally got its first use in the real world, but it appears it was by mistake.
A video shared by u/Joshalander in the r/TeslaLounge subreddit recorded the instance from his vehicle and said the incident took place in Austin this past weekend during the city’s F1 Race.
“Was charging around 6 AM this past Sunday in Austin before heading to the F1 race and heard a pop. Looked over and saw the new emergency drive-away feature in action. Genuinely felt bad for the dude when he got out and realized what happened, since he looked exhausted and only seemed to half-read the prompts.”
🚨 Here’s the first look at Tesla’s Emergency Drive Away function in action:
Apparently this driver accidentally enabled it and drove forward; you can see the Supercharger pull with the car.
Tesla said previously this would cost up to $25k if not used properly. https://t.co/B4qQRrsO6B
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2026
Emergency Drive Away unlatches the Supercharger connector from the vehicle, but still causes damage to both the car and the Supercharger. Tesla has said that it will cost up to $25,000 in repairs to have everything fixed back to normal.
Additionally, the company said that if it were not used in an emergency situation, the driver of the vehicle who activated the Emergency Drive Away feature would be responsible for all repair costs.
Tesla constitutes the following situations as reasonable justifications for activating the feature:
- You face an immediate threat to your life or personal safety.
- You must leave the area immediately.
- Exiting the vehicle is unsafe.
- Unplugging the charge connector would unreasonably delay your departure or expose you to a risk to your personal safety.
After using the feature, Tesla requires the driver to schedule Service so the car can be inspected.
Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile are trying to shut Starlink out before FCC vote
Tesla Semi catches fire in California: what we know
