Elon Musk has issued a brutal five-word response after Bill Gates claimed that he was ‘killing’ children.

Musk’s role within government has proven to be controversial ever since he was appointed as the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) earlier this year.

While not technically a government department, Musk was said to act as an outside advisor to the Trump administration on federal spending.

The SpaceX founder has since taken a step back from his role within the government, but when his appointment was first announced he vowed to slash the federal budget – although most cuts have since been made by canceling contracts and making mass layoffs.

Speaking to CBS Mornings, the co-founder of Microsoft warned that he believed the cuts being made by DOGE would be at the expense of two million lives.

Bill Gates: Elon Musk 'killing the world's poorest children' with USAID cuts

Speaking about his charity work to fund life saving vaccines to save children’s lives around the world, Gates said: “Now with these cuts if they’re not reversed, it’ll go to over six million dying. So, instead of [the figures] going down, it’ll go back up.”

The reporter replied: “Wow, so it’s a difference of two million lives.”

In response, Gates said: “Absolutely.”

This discussion took place during an interview where Gates shared his plans to donate 99% of his wealth.

Pledging to part with his money before his death, Gates previously said: “People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that ‘he died rich’ will not be one of them.

“There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people.”

It seems that Musk isn’t best pleased by this interview after he took to social media to respond.

Bill Gates accuses Elon Musk of 'killing' children with USAID cuts

Taking to his own platform X, formerly Twitter, the billionaire wrote: “Gates is a huge liar.”

The Tesla boss went on to share a video from an appearance he made on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, where he called out Gates.

In the interview, Musk said: “Known Epstein clients who are obviously extremely powerful, powerful politically and very wealthy, are Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, and Reid Hoffman, and some others too but those three.”

Gates has previously addressed his connection with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal earlier this year, Gates said: “In retrospect, I was foolish to spend any time with him. And he, sort of, got time with various people by spending time with other people.

“So yes, I think I was quite stupid. I thought it would help me with global health philanthropy. In fact, it failed to do that it was just a huge mistake.”