Elon Musk Lost a Bet That COVID Would Quickly Fade, and What He Did Next Says a Lot About Him as a Person

There's "something seriously wrong with his moral compass, if not his perception of reality."

Friend to Foe

During the early days of the COVID pandemic, Elon Musk lost a bet to a longtime friend — and apparently took the loss incredibly poorly, in what sounds like an early warning sign of his now near-permanent state of self-humiliation.

That now ex-friend, podcaster-philsopher Sam Harris, is finally revealing how the wager led to them dramatically falling out.

The petty saga is a case study in how, in Harris' view, Musk has totally changed as a person — and for the worse. In sum: being chronically online melted Elon's brain.

"The friend I remember did not seem to hunger for public attention." Harris wrote in a post on his Substack. "But his engagement with Twitter/X transformed him."

"Let this be a cautionary tale for any of Elon's friends who might be tempted to tell the great man something he doesn't want to hear," he added.

COVID Mind Virus

It all started back in March 2020, when the coronavirus was taking hold in the US. "The coronavirus panic is dumb," Musk tweeted at the time.

Harris thought this was irresponsible and that it'd hurt Elon's reputation, so he reached out to his friend in a private text. "You have an enormous platform, and much of the world looks to you as an authority on all things technical," Harris cautioned.

Elon's response was jarring: "Sam, you of all people should not be concerned with this." The billionaire linked to a page on the CDC website indicating that COVID was not among the top 100 causes of death in the US. 

"This was a patently silly point to make in the first days of a pandemic," Harris wrote on his Substack.

After hours of texting, neither saw eye to eye. But they did agree on a bet. Musk bet donating $1 million to charity against a $1,000 bottle of tequila that COVID cases in the US would not exceed 35,000.

"The terms of the bet reflected what was, in his estimation, the near certainty (1000 to 1) that he was right," Harris said.

Podcaster Scorned

Obviously, this didn't age well. Just a few weeks later, the CDC reported 35,000 deaths — and 600,000 cases. A triumphant Harris texted Musk, "Is (35,000 deaths + 600,000 cases) > 35,000 cases?"

Musk never replied.

"This text appears to have ended our friendship," Harris wrote, and Musk "began maligning me on Twitter." (A small sampling: Harris is "actually not that smart," an "utter idiot," is "irrationality personified.")

This is despite the fact that the two of them agree on a bevy of political issues, Harris claims. "The problem with Elon, is that he makes no effort to get his facts straight when discussing any of these topics."

"Any dispassionate observer of Elon's behavior on Twitter/X can see that there is something seriously wrong with his moral compass, if not his perception of reality," Harris concluded. "There is simply no excuse for a person with his talents, resources, and opportunities to create so much pointless noise."

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