Bill Gates appeared on The Late Late Show With James Corden Wednesday night.
Bill Gates took a subtle dig at billionaires obsessed with space during an interview with James Corden. The host of The Late Late Show with James Corden welcomed the Microsoft founder on his talk show on Wednesday and shared a clip of their interaction on Twitter. In the video, Mr Corden begins by thanking Mr Gates for being the "one billionaire who is not trying to escape planet earth on a spaceship at the moment."
The billionaire space race, as it has come to be known, is the rivalry among entrepreneurs who are channeling their wealth into realising the space travel dream. While Elon Musk's SpaceX recently launched four people into space on a three-day mission, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos flew to the edge of space in July. Before that, Virgin Group billionaire Richard Branson soared more than 50 miles above the New Mexico desert aboard his Virgin Galactic rocket plane and safely returned in the vehicle's first fully crewed test flight to space.
But unlike his contemporaries, Bill Gates has so far shown no inclination to join the space race. He explained the reason to Mr Corden when asked "why is this a thing that billionaires are obsessed with at the moment?"
"I don't know," Mr Gates replied. "I have become obsessed with things like Malaria and HIV and getting rid of those diseases and I would probably bore people at cocktail parties talking about diseases.
"Space? You know, we have a lot to do here on earth," he added, smiling.
Climate change was the topic of discussion across late night shows in the US on Wednesday. Prominent talk show hosts across networks - including James Corden, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah - all the addressed the issues in their shows. Mr Gates spoke at length about climate change during his Late Late Show with James Corden appearance, also discussing the changes that individuals can make to combat climate disaster.
"Thanks for having me on the show, @JKCorden," he tweeted afterwards. "And thanks to the all of the late night hosts for focusing on this critical challenge. I'm optimistic that we can come together to avoid a climate disaster."
Meanwhile, his video has been viewed more than 1.3 lakh times on Twitter.
"So true Mr Bill Gates!" wrote one person in the comments section.
"Very well said," another agreed.
A third Twitter user called it the "Classiest Burn."
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