WATCH | Bill Gates says Musk is ‘killing’ the world’s poorest children

Bill Gates pledged on Thursday to give away $200bn (R3.6-trillion) via his charitable foundation by 2045 and lashed out at Elon Musk, accusing the world's richest man of “killing the world's poorest children” through huge cuts to the US foreign aid budget.

The 69-year-old billionaire co-founder of Microsoft said he was speeding up his plans to divest almost all his fortune and would close the foundation on December 31 2045, years earlier than previously planned.

Gates said he believed the money would help achieve several of his goals, including eradicating diseases such as polio and malaria, ending preventable deaths among women and children and reducing global poverty.

His announcement comes after moves by governments, including US President Donald Trump's 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. Around 80% of USAID programmes are set to be cut. The agency spent $44bn (R802bn) worldwide in fiscal 2023.

“The picture of the world's richest man killing the world's 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 funding cuts by governments worldwide.

“The number of deaths will start going up for the first time. It's going to be millions more deaths because of the resources,” Gates told Reuters.

The Gates Foundation's annual budget will reach $9bn (R164.2bn) by 2026 and around $10bn (R182.4bn) annually after that due to the accelerated spending. Gates has warned the White House his foundation and other philanthropies cannot fill the gaps left by governments.

“I think governments will come back to caring about children surviving” over the next 20 years, Gates said on Thursday.

Gates and Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, once agreed about the role of the wealthy in giving away money to help others, but have since clashed several times.

Asked if he had appealed to Musk recently to change course, Gates said it was up to Congress to decide on the future for US aid spending.

“Gates is a huge liar,” Musk said in reply to a tweet on his X social media platform that featured an interview with Gates warning about US aid cuts.

Musk's spokespeople were not immediately available for comment.

Gates said despite his foundation's deep pockets, progress would not be possible without government support.

“There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people,” Gates wrote in a post on his website.

“It's unclear whether the world's richest countries will continue to stand up for its poorest people.”

He praised the response to aid cuts in Africa, where some governments have reallocated budgets, but said, as an example, polio would not be eradicated without US funding.

Gates made the announcement on the foundation's 25th anniversary. He set up the organisation with his then-wife Melinda French Gates in 2000, and they were later joined by billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

Since inception, the foundation has given away $100bn (R1.8-trillion), helping to save millions of lives and backing initiatives such as the vaccine group Gavi and the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. It will close after it spends around 99% of Gates' personal fortune, he said. The founders originally expected the foundation to wrap up in the decades after their deaths.

Gates, whose fortune is valued at around $108bn (R1.9-trillion), expects the foundation to spend around $200bn by 2045, with the final figure dependent on markets and inflation. The foundation has faced criticism for its outsize power and influence in the field without the requisite accountability, including at the World Health Organisation.

Gates was subject to conspiracy theories, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic. He has spoken to Trump several times in recent months, and twice since the president took office on January 20, he told Reuters on Thursday, on the importance of continued investment in global health.

He told Reuters: “The world does have values. That's what my parents taught me.” 

Reuters