Bill Gates announced on Thursday the project to close the Gates Foundation in 2045 and also strongly criticized Elon Musk for having cut the funding of the American Agency for International Development (USAID), accusing Tesla CEO of “killing the poorest children in the world” in new interviews.
In an interview with the Financial Times published Thursday, Gates condemned sudden cuts for funding to the USAID by the so-called “Ministry of Effectiveness of the Government” (DOGE), claiming that the cuts had led to the expiration of vital foods and drugs, and could lead to the resurgence of diseases such as measles, HIV and politics.
“The image of the richest man in the world killing the poorest children in the world is not pretty,” said Gates.
Since Donald Trump took office in January, he and Musk began to reduce funding and reduce operations to USAID, the largest international aid agency in the United States government, once considered the world’s largest humanitarian aid. Musk’s Doge Initiative staff have worked to dig and dismantle the agency and dismissed more than 5,600 USAID workers.
Gates, 69, told Financial Times that Musk had canceled grants to a hospital in the province of Gaza, Mozambique, which, according to him, worked to prevent the transmission of mothers’ HIV to babies, according to the erroneous belief that the United States provided condoms in Hamas in Gaza in the Middle East.
“I would like him to enter and meet the children who have now been infected with HIV because he reduced this money,” said Gates.
In a separate interview with the New York Times also published on Thursday, Gates said that Musk had put Usaid “in the wooden shredder, because he had not gone to a party this weekend”.
The Times asked Gates about Musk’s commitment to Don’s commitment – a philanthropic commitment launched by Gates, as well as his ex -wife Melinda French Gates and Warren Buffett. The commitment, which Musk signed in 2012, encourages people who are rich to contribute to the majority of their wealth to charities during their lifetime or in their will.
Gates told Times that a “unusual aspect” of the commitment is that “you can wait until you die while realizing it”.
“So who knows?” Said Gates, Musk “could continue to be a great philanthrope”.
“In the meantime, the richest man in the world has been involved in the death of the poorest children in the world,” continued the Gates.
Gates also told Times that given the various cuts imposed by the Trump administration, he expected infant mortality to increase by one million additional deaths per year.
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Gates’ remarks are taking place as the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft announced Thursday in a blog, he plans to distribute “almost all” of his wealth through the Gates Foundation in the next 20 years “for the cause of safeguarding and improving lives worldwide” before closing its foundation on December 31, 2045.
“Over the next twenty years, the Gates Foundation will aim to save and improve as many lives as possible,” Gates wrote.
“By accelerating our gifts, I hope we can put the world on the way to the end of the avoidable death of mothers and babies and to raise millions of people from poverty. I believe that we can leave the next generation better and better prepared to fight the next set of challenges.
“It is difficult to know if the richest countries in the world will continue to defend its poorest people. But the only thing we can guarantee is that, in all our work, the Gates foundation will support efforts to help people and countries withdraw from poverty. There are simply too many opportunities to lift people so that we do not take them. ”
Gates estimates that by 2045, the foundation will spend more than $ 200 billion for these efforts.
