The 69-year-old billionaire co-founder of Microsoft said he was speeding up his plans to divest almost all of his fortune and would close the foundation on 31 December 2045, years earlier than previously planned. Gates said he believed the money would help achieve several of his goals, such as eradicating diseases like polio and malaria, ending preventable deaths among women and children, and reducing global poverty.
His announcement follows moves by governments, including the Trump administration, to slash international aid budgets used to prevent deadly disease and famine.
The US cuts have been overseen by Musk, who has publicly bragged about feeding the US Agency for International Development into the wood chipper, and his department of government efficiency Doge. Around 80 of USAid programmes are set to be cut the agency spent 44-billion worldwide in fiscal 2023.
The picture of the worlds richest man killing the worlds poorest children is not a pretty one, Gates told the Financial Times. In an interview with Reuters, Gates warned of a stark reversal to decades of progress in reducing mortality over the next four to six years due to the funding cuts by governments worldwide.
I think governments will come back to caring about children surviving over the next 20-year period, though, Gates said on Thursday.