Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, has condemned Elon Musk, accusing him of endangering the lives of the world’s poorest children by championing deep reductions in American foreign aid.
Musk, who currently oversees the Department of Government Efficiency under President Donald Trump’s administration, has been a key figure behind sweeping budget cuts to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). USAID has historically played a critical role in funding global health programmes and emergency food initiatives across developing nations.
The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one,” Gates told the Financial Times on Thursday, levelling one of his harshest criticisms yet against Musk. According to Bill Gates, the budget reductions spearheaded by Musk’s department have severely undermined USAID’s capacity to fund vital interventions, including vaccination drives and food assistance programmes aimed at vulnerable populations.
His rebuke came alongside the announcement of his intention to give away nearly all of his wealth over the next twenty years. Gates also revealed plans to close the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation by 2045. Since its founding in 2000, the foundation, which Gates established alongside his former wife Melinda French Gates and later joined by investor Warren Buffett, has disbursed $100 billion, with another $100 billion set to be spent before its closure.
In a statement shared on his website, Gates wrote: “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.”
Beyond targeting Musk, Bill Gates expressed concern over a broader trend of declining foreign aid commitments from wealthy nations. He pointed to shrinking contributions from the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, questioning whether affluent countries would continue supporting the world’s most disadvantaged.
It’s unclear whether the world’s richest countries will continue to stand up for its poorest people,” he said. He warned that without sustained government support, private foundations like his would be insufficient to maintain progress on global health challenges.
Highlighting polio eradication efforts as an example, Bill Gates cautioned that such campaigns could collapse without adequate American backing: “Polio would not be eradicated.”Despite facing past criticism over the Gates Foundation’s outsized influence in global health and being the subject of misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic, Gates defended the responsibility of billionaires to contribute to global welfare.
“I hope other wealthy people consider how much they can accelerate progress for the world’s poorest if they increased the pace and scale of their giving, because it is such a profoundly impactful way to give back to society,” he said.
Though Gates and Musk previously shared common ground on philanthropy, their relationship has fractured in recent years, with international aid policy now standing at the heart of their disagreement.#Bill Gates#Musk
