Tech maverick Elon Musk has revealed that neither he nor his kids will take the coronavirus vaccine. Speaking with journalist Kara Swisher on her podcast Sway, the father of six said he and his family are not in the risk group, therefore there is no need for them to get an inoculation.
Musk reiterated his position on lockdowns, a safety measure used to curb the spread of COVID-19. The entrepreneur said they have not served the greater good.
"This is a no win situation. It has diminished my faith in humanity, this whole thing", he told Swisher.
Musk said he believes only people that are at risk of developing severe illness from COVID-19 should be quarantined "until the storm passes".
Kara Swisher retorted saying:
"You know, you’re talking a lot about saving humanity but these are humans that die in the process."
Musk replied: "Everybody dies."
However, the entrepreneur felt uncomfortable and asked Swisher to move on when she pressed him on whether he will pay Tesla employees who decide to stay at home and not go to work because they fear they could put their relatives at risk.
"Let’s just move on. Kara, I do not want to get into a debate about COVID, this situation", Musk said.
Musk has repeatedly criticized safety measures taken during the pandemic, such as the closure of businesses and lockdowns, which he branded "de facto house arrest". The tech maverick even threatened to sue a California county after it prohibited Tesla from resuming work at one of its factories in May.
Musk revealed that work at Tesla and SpaceX did not stop during the pandemic.
"This entire time SpaceX has been at work. Through this entire thing we didn’t skip a day. We had national security clearance because we were doing national security work. We sent astronauts to the space station and back. Tesla has been [open], apart from several weeks where we were shut down by the state and then overzealous Alameda County, which was a travesty. But apart from that we’ve been making cars this entire time. And it’s been great", Musk said.
The entrepreneur also took the opportunity to take a jab at Bill Gates, who once criticized Musk for confusing areas of expertise.
"And I should say, we’ve also spent quite a lot of time with the Harvard epidemiology team doing antibody studies. Tesla makes the vaccine machines for CureVac. Gates said something about me not knowing what I was doing. It’s like, hey, knucklehead, we actually make the vaccine machines for CureVac, that company you’re invested in", Musk told Swisher.
Musk has made numerous controversial statements over the course of the pandemic. He dismissed the forecast of epidemiologists from Imperial College, who in March predicted that cases of coronavirus in the United States would surpass the 2 million mark. Back then, Musk said there is a zero chance of that happening. He also claimed that there would be zero infections in the US by the end of April.
The United States now has the biggest number of coronavirus cases in the world (7.1 million) and the biggest death toll from the disease, which stands at more than 205,000.