Business mogul and philanthropist Elon Musk yet again publicly dismissed risks of COVID-19 by asserting neither he nor his family will be taking its vaccine if it becomes available.
On an episode of “Sway” published Monday, as cited by CNN, where Elon Musk is interviewed by host Kara Swisher, the SpaceX founder and CEO justified this claim by saying “I’m not at risk for COVID, nor are my kids.”
Elon Musk thoughts on lockdown
In the interview, the Tesla CEO questioned the lockdowns and stay-at-home orders imposed in the U.S., arguing that “the right thing to do would be to not have done” it.
Instead, he put forward that persons at risk of contracting the virus be “quarantined until the storm passes” in order to mitigate its spread.
Elon Musk announces his family will not be getting a Coronavirus vaccine, saying “I’m not at risk, neither are my kids.”https://t.co/qkFH0djkvg
— James Todaro, MD (@JamesTodaroMD) September 29, 2020
Findings of published research conducted at the University of California at Berkely actually suggest that lockdowns instituted as a response to the pandemic work.
Denouncing said quarantine orders, He further said that “it has diminished my faith in humanity” pointing to “the irrationality of people in general” to make his case, Dailymail reports.
When questioned about the safety of his employees who would feel the risk of coming out to work, he would tell them to “stay at home.” Criticized by journalist Swisher who pointed out the risks of death, the South African native jested “Everybody dies.”
On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that the death toll of the global pandemic has surpassed one million people worldwide. In the U.S. alone, the number of cases has already come to 7 million.
Calls Bill Gates “knucklehead”
Now the fifth-richest person in the world, the centibillionaire has been distinctively candid with his skeptic views about the pandemic and how different countries around the world have responded to it.
In March earlier this year, he even went as far as describing on his Twitter page how “The coronavirus pandemic is dumb“, as well as predicting “close to zero new cases in US” by the end of April.
Later in the interview with Swisher, Musk did not fail to address the comments of Microsoft founder and business magnate Bill Gates who, in an interview with CNBC in July, had condemned the former’s comments on the pandemic, advising him to not to “confuse areas he’s not involved in too much.”
In response to this criticism, the automotive mogul called Gates a “knucklehead” and boasted on the manufacturing work Tesla does with German biopharmaceutical firm Curevac on their vaccine machines. Musk also called out that Curevac is a company Gates is invested in.
Featured image courtesy of Daniel Oberhaus/Flickr