If so smart move by Gates, he's got enough reputation problems as it is. In general I would not be surprised if more and more people are going to distance themselves from Musk over the next couple of weeks/months, at least until he starts behaving in a more rational and balanced way. I can't imagine that someone with his smarts isn't able to see that the path that he is currently on is leading straight to the abyss and even Musk won't be able to recover past a certain point. He needs to get this sorted out and soon.
Heh, the story was published at 4:09 PM EST on December 16.
This was 16 minutes after Bill Gates last tweeted, thus destroying the premise of the article.