Bill Gates has said he’d rather fund vaccines to “save lives” than go to Mars, but he thinks Elon Musk will be “a great philanthropist” someday.

  • Bill Gates told the BBC he doesn’t see a trip to Mars as a good investment.
  • “You can buy a measles vaccine and save a life for $1,000 for every life saved,” Gates explained.
  • He also said that he believes Elon Musk has made a positive impact through Tesla, even though it’s not a charity.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said he would rather pay for life-saving vaccines than spend money on a flight to Mars, commenting on how his priorities differ from those of one of the richest people on Earth.

Gates made the comments in a BBC interview published Thursday in which journalist Amol Rajan asked the billionaire if he would encourage Tesla founder Elon Musk to join the “megaphilanthropist club,” citing Gates, Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos.

“Yes, I think he will be a great philanthropist someday,” Gates said of Musk. “Clearly, things like Tesla have a positive impact without even being a form of philanthropy. I don’t think he wants to spend it on himself.”

Gates added that he believes Musk will eventually become a philanthropist, “using his ingenuity.”

After an additional question from Rajan, Gates also said that in his opinion, going to Mars is not the best waste of money.

“It’s actually quite expensive to go to Mars,” he told the BBC. “You can buy a measles vaccine and save a life for $1,000 for every life saved, and it sort of justifies you, like, ‘Don’t fly to Mars.'”

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by Gates and his ex-wife Melinda French-Gates, has invested billions of dollars in research, development and delivery of vaccines to the world’s poorest countries. The foundation says it has spent billions on efforts to eradicate polio worldwide, including by expanding access to vaccines.

Gates, along with French-Gates and Buffett, also founded the Giving Pledge, through which some of the world’s richest people pledged to give away most of their wealth.

Musk, often referred to as the world’s richest man, also signed the pledge in 2012. Last year, Musk made a charitable donation of $5.7 billion in Tesla stock to the Musk Foundation, which he co-founded with his brother Kimball Musk in 2002. The fund distributed about $160 million in 2022, according to Bloomberg.

Musk previously said it’s hard to find “ways to donate money that really matter”. In 2021, a Vox report concluded that Musk donated 0.05% of his fortune to charity.

Gates and Musk have publicly disagreed in the past, including over COVID-19, ways to combat climate change and space travel.

Musk and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

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