Bill Gates

Bill Gates publicly criticized Trump's USAID cuts, writing 'The devastating effects of these cuts are entirely preventable—and it's not too late to reverse them.' He met with Trump and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles in February 2025 to advocate for continuing foreign aid disbursements.

In March 2025, Bill Gates dissolved Breakthrough Energy's public policy units in both the United States and Europe, saying the advocacy work was 'not likely to have a significant effect in Washington' as the second Trump administration promoted fossil fuels and dissolved climate programs. The decision shifted Breakthrough's strategy away from policy advocacy toward supporting clean energy technology alone.

At a book talk at Colonial Theater in February 2025, Bill Gates stated 'I will say that some of these diversity things probably have gone too far, too far.' He added that he would try to 'help the reinvention' of DEI but felt issues of poverty had been overlooked.

Bill Gates donated $50 million to Future Forward, a nonprofit Democratic-aligned PAC supporting Kamala Harris's presidential campaign. The donation was intended to remain private but was reported by the New York Times. Gates had previously stated in 2019 that he chose not to participate in large political donations, making this a notable departure.

Bill Gates met multiple times with Jeffrey Epstein between 2011 and 2014, after Epstein's 2008 sex offender conviction. Gates visited Epstein's Manhattan mansion and flew on Epstein's private jet. Gates initially minimized the relationship, claiming no 'business relationship or friendship.' In 2021, it emerged the meetings were more extensive. Gates has since repeatedly apologized, calling it 'foolish' and 'a huge mistake.' Melinda French Gates cited the Epstein association as contributing to their divorce, calling Epstein 'evil personified.'

In April-May 2021, Bill Gates personally opposed waiving TRIPS intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines, arguing that vaccine factory capacity, not patents, was the bottleneck. Gates lobbied US Trade Representative Katherine Tai against the waiver. Critics noted the Gates Foundation had earlier convinced Oxford University to partner exclusively with AstraZeneca rather than sharing its vaccine formula through an open license. The Foundation reversed course in May 2021, stating support for a narrow waiver during the pandemic.

On September 24, 2019, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded its Goalkeepers Global Goals award to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the Swachh Bharat (Clean India) sanitation campaign. The decision drew criticism from academics, Nobel laureates, and human rights activists, with a petition signed by over 100,000 people demanding the Foundation rescind the award, arguing a Hindu nationalist leader with human rights abuse allegations should not be celebrated by an organization stating 'every life has equal value.'

In 2015, Bill Gates founded Breakthrough Energy, an umbrella organization investing in clean energy technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By 2025, Gates had invested approximately $4 billion of his own money into climate efforts through the initiative, with over $3.5 billion in committed capital across roughly 100 companies developing energy storage, sustainable aviation, and carbon capture technologies.

Through his investment firm Cascade Investment, Bill Gates accumulated approximately 275,000 acres of farmland across 17 states since 2013, becoming the nation's largest private farmland owner. Major acquisitions include assets from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (2017) and 100 Circles acreage in Washington state (2018), totaling over $690 million in those two deals alone. Gates said the investments aim to make farms more productive, but the scale of holdings has drawn criticism about wealth concentration in agricultural land.

In 2010, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett launched the Giving Pledge, a campaign encouraging the world's wealthiest individuals to commit more than half their wealth to philanthropic causes. As of 2025, over 250 signatories from 30 countries have joined. However, critics note the pledge is non-binding, and an IPS report found that few of the original 2010 pledgers have actually given away half their wealth, with Gates' own net worth more than doubling from $53B to over $115B since signing.

As CEO and chairman, Bill Gates led Microsoft during the landmark 1998-2001 DOJ antitrust case. The trial resulted in Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ruling that Microsoft violated antitrust laws by bundling Internet Explorer with Windows to stifle competition from Netscape. Gates personally testified in the trial. The EU subsequently fined Microsoft $2.4 billion (2004-2007) and an additional $1.4 billion (2008) for abusing its dominant market position.

Through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates has committed over $50 billion to global health initiatives since 2000, including major programs to eradicate polio, reduce malaria deaths, and improve vaccination access in developing countries. The Foundation became the largest private funder of the WHO and a dominant force in global health policy.