Bill Gates Goes Nuclear on Elon Musk: ‘The World’s Richest Man Killing the World’s Poorest Children’
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Microsoft founder Bill Gates didn’t mince words in his evaluation of Elon Musk’s role in government, fuming that “the world’s richest man” was “killing the world’s poorest children.”
Speaking with the The Financial Times, Gates expressed his disgust with Musk’s role in shuttering the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
“The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one,” said Gates, who told the Times that he’d “love for him [Musk] to go in and meet the children that have now been infected with HIV because he cut” American aid that had been going to a hospital in Mozambique.
Gates’s comments came concurrently with an announcement that his own charitable endeavor, the Gates Foundation, would spend an estimated $200 billion over the next 20 years before closing its doors in 2045.
“It gives us clarity,” said Gates. “We’ll have a lot more money because we’re spending down over the 20 years, as opposed to making an effort to be a perpetual foundation.”
This isn’t the first time that Gates criticized Musk, both over his attacks on USAID and his embrace of right-wing European politicians.
“USAID plays a super important role… it’s work that saves millions of lives and helps strengthen relationships for the United States,” Gates told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in February. “The basic idea that we should review almost every department and that if you were really smart about using technology or updating the goals, you could save 10% here, 10% there—which adds up to a lot—I don’t think that’s a mistake. But going in very quickly and saying that all these people run a criminal organization—that’s not quite as subtle as you’d hope to see.”
“You want to promote the right wing but say Nigel Farage is not right wing enough,” mused Gates in January.
“It’s really insane that he [Musk] can destabilise the political situations in countries,” continued the billionaire. “I think in the U.S. foreigners aren’t allowed to give money; other countries maybe should adopt safeguards to make sure super-rich foreigners aren’t distorting their elections.”
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