One of the great tragedies of the world is that while he is arguably the philanthropist with the highest positive impact in human history, a significant part of the population seems to still think he is the literal Antichrist.
So if you consider Jobs’ boat or Apple Park or the fact that 700M people hold a literal masterpiece of design and engineering in their hands in order to send nudes and memes to each other a work of benevolence then it makes sense.
People like the bill gates of the 90s don't just disappear
Is that ever?
I am not saying Gates is a monster. So I am not commenting on him. I am commenting on your logic of doing supposed good and hence they becoming good.
When you look at the history of most colonial monsters you will notice is an often repeated trend. Those despicable monster amassing wealth literally on the bodies of natives and then going back home (including some to USA) and buying a "good name" (sometimes literally in the form of those fancy titles and peerages etc).
Oh by the way, Musk and Ellison from your example are benign non-beings compared to pretty much all those "monsters".
I don't know where you are from or where you are now but a lot of world sees "good deeds of good people" with great suspicion.
People think he is the antichrist because he promotes vaccines and because there are multiple quotes of him where he explains that he wants to reduce the world's population. By raising the standard of living and giving healthcare to the poor, which empirically seem to cause lower birth rates, but lots of nutjobs assume he tests weaponized vaccines or something like that. And people are distrusting of people who appear too altruistic in general, thinking it's some kind of con (and often they are right).
But in practice they are the same thing. Almost the entire developed world has a fertility rate below the replacement rate. Even the upper half of developing countries are below replacement rate. If you bring health care, urbanization and the economy across Africa to levels comparable to Russia or Brazil we can expect their birth rate to similarly fall below the replacement rate too.
https://www.politico.eu/article/elon-musk-to-blame-for-world...
But they were a significant force in electing the current president and his health secretary who is currently endangering whether we all get a flu and Covid booster this autumn.
While concerns about the Covid-19 vaccine are highest (24%), significant numbers of people still feel that "normal" vaccines are unsafe, like MMR (9%) and flu (11%).
[1] https://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/vaccine-confiden...
Ever met a flat earther, a Qanon, or a chemtrails guy? I'll put good money they also believe that vaccines cause autism
Virtually all (meaning systemically) very wealthy people had to exploit others to get to their very wealthy state.
He also did awful things in the business world when he was younger. He's no saint, either, he is just a normal, messy person. But he's done more for the poorest and neediest people in the world than most countries.
Beware that you don't fall into the trap of thinking the 1% of the population that makes 90% of the noise on the internet is "significant" or a representative sampling of the population. Most everyone else's views are quite boring and detached from extremism, they just don't shout their moderation on the rooftops.
he's "extorted" a lot of money from various states by locking and price-gouging, money that would have otherwise been spent on social projects
basically he has done
Gates -> extort money -> fantastic personal wealth -> gave back to organization *he* decides to give too
while the normal path would be
Governments and people have lower spending because they don't need to give Microsoft too much cash -> governments and people decide by themselves how to spend extra money -> there are more, and more diversified, humanitarian actions
That people can create wealth is alien to most people!
They think wealth is money, which leads to a zero sum belief system. That is, if Bill has $200B, he must have taken it from the rest of us.
Some grass is in need of touching.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/21/jeffrey-epst...
Gates addressing their relationship:
https://people.com/bill-gates-addresses-jeffrey-epstein-frie... https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/05/business/bill-gates-regrets-j...
Articles saying that they met "sometimes for a few hours":
https://pagesix.com/2025/04/15/celebrity-news/melinda-gates-...
Etc etc.
Nothing (as far as I can see, and tbh I'm not going to read past the first page of google results) suggesting that they were close friends in any meaning of the word.
Like, I don't know what kind of conclusion OP wants people to draw out of this. A lot of people were "friends" with Epstein, since he knew pretty much everyone, there are pictures of him smiling and shaking hands with lots of well known VIPs.
Which is why I asked OP for a source so we can just read about this - the whole "do your whole research" thing is just such an easy cop out because like you said "just google" doesn't really confirm anything, it's just a bunch of news articles from more or less reputable sources.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-...
"Bill Gates Met With Jeffrey Epstein Many Times, Despite His Past".
For anyone actually curious and unaware there are plenty of new articles that talk about Gates and Epstein, it's not some hidden secret. However it's a topic those who like Gates philanthropy like to ignore and pretend it doesn't exist as can be seen in this thread.
She divorced him over Gates cheating, not over the relationship with Epstein - if I'm wrong please correct me.
>>like to ignore and pretend it doesn't exist
I honestly don't want to, like the other commented said "just google" - so I "just googled" and none of the articles I found suggest they had anything beyond a very superficial relationship where they met a few times. Again, if I'm wrong please correct me.
>In a 2022 interview, Melinda said, “I did not like that he had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein, no. I made that clear to him,” per Page Six, adding that she only met the child sex offender once because she “wanted to see who” he was. “I regretted it the second I walked in the door,” she went on, adding, “He was abhorrent. He was evil personified. My heart breaks for these women.” https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/melinda-ga...
If you just Google what Bill Gates later said then of course you will find how he only met a few times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-...
But let me quote what the article you linked says:
"claimed that Bill had met the disgraced financier on “numerous occasions.” One of those meetings allegedly lasted for hours."
Does that sound to you like they had a deep relationship of any kind? I'm just trying to form my own view on it - and that just doesn't read to me like the kind of relationship that people try to portray it as. If I met with someone "numerous times, sometimes for hours" you wouldn't immediately think we are friends or that we even share any values together, would you?
>> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-...
I can't access that without a sub, you'll have to give me the jist or some quotes.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250505081209/https://www.nytim...
And thank you for the archive link, I didn't know you could do it this way. If this surprises you then I'd link to link you this:
You are welcome for the archive link. I already knew what XKCD comic you were going to post before I opened it. The irony is that you don't know the basics of hacking and news, yet want to pontificate on the highest levels of reality. That is evidence of a skill issue, which permeates everything about your life, and resultingly, all your beliefs and writings.
The irony of thinking you are edgy and enlightened, while all your beliefs and idioms are exactly the new mainstream norms is pretty funny. The basic-bitchness sneaks on you faster than you can see it coming I guess.
Edit: I think it's great that he is doing this, but I don't think it's a good system. Giving money is so hard at scale that you need to set up a corporation just to figure out how to do it, and either it's so hard that they can barely shave away at the amount they have or their MO has evolved to include preserving themselves as an entity. If that wealth were more distributed, the social distance between those in need and those with money would be less.
(I'm highly skeptical of social movements that claim to be for equality, but of course there are officials who suspiciously enjoy non-equal luxuries. Then it just looks like greedy sociopaths leveraging 'equality' PR in bad faith, as a tactic.)
Natural resources also are not distributed equally and e.g. living longer life is a basic human need. What if some other country has the technology to save humans but they don't give it for free? Some start hoarding wealth in order to get that and it changes the political attitude in general.
And then I suppose that Steve Jobs is the Christ in this story.
You only have to look at the research output of Microsoft Research to know that it is the other way around. Kind of weird how even smart people get things mixed up.
For instance, his foundation pushes birth control in developing nations. On the surface, it look like a just and noble cause.
But imagine how a developed nation would view an act like this on its own people from a foreign body. Imagine some wealthy Chinese national started taking out ads on American television telling Americans to have fewer children and going to poor neighborhoods in the US and handing out free contraceptives.
It's a kind of soft imperialism and social engineering that I imagine a lot of people object to. The guy can't even keep his marriage together and he's insistent on telling people half way around the world how to run their life?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates#Treatment_of_collea...
What I don't understand is the comradeship I see in people competing to effusively praise oligarchs. Bill Gates fought against technological progress, fought against free and open source software, fought against antitrust, even bribed officials to push out competitors. Why would people pat each other on the back for admiring him?
Even afterwards, when he bought his redemption by showering money upon dubious nonprofits, and by creating other, even more dubious nonprofits - simply paying everyone who could possibly have a problem with him, including dozens of journalistic organizations and hundreds of individual journalists - all of his charitable efforts are still obviously ways to play with various social theories that he has, not to help people.
It takes a real psychopath to accumulate that much power, with so few principles, and then to use it to play games with people's lives. His entertainment and the entertainment of his class is endangering the world.
And I still listen to Michael Jackson, so whatever, but we know that his relationship with Epstein was pretty extensive, and what was said during his divorce (in relation to that) was alarming, as well as the fact that he immediately crumbled and gave her the farm. There's your conspiracy theory; I'm not going to be caught praising a guy for mosquito nets whom I pretty much knew hung out with Epstein for a time as intensely as anyone else did. Epstein was giving away money for elite approval, too.
What's money for if not for patronage? You can't take it with you.
Many in tech were along for the Bill Gates show and felt he was a negative actor to the industry in many ways. The fact that he is taking that wealth and channeling it through charity to achieve what he believes is important worries many on both sides of the political divide because of the enormous amounts of power he has.
Specifically over the foundation: 1. Influence Over Public Policy Criticism: The foundation’s massive financial power allows it to heavily influence public health, education, and agricultural policy, sometimes without democratic oversight.
Example: In education, their support for charter schools and Common Core standards drew criticism for pushing reforms without enough input from teachers and communities.
2. Pharmaceutical and Vaccine Influence Criticism: The foundation has been accused of favoring pharmaceutical-based solutions, sometimes at the expense of broader public health approaches.
Example: Critics argue that funding pharmaceutical companies during vaccine rollouts (especially during COVID-19) prioritized private profits over equitable global access.
3. Corporate Ties Criticism: The foundation has invested in companies that contradict its stated goals (e.g., Coca-Cola, ExxonMobil), raising ethical questions.
Example: Investments in fossil fuel companies were seen as inconsistent with health and development goals.
4. Global South Criticism Criticism: Some argue that Gates Foundation programs in Africa and other regions can be top-down, lacking local input, and continuing a form of “philanthropic colonialism.”
5. Agricultural Interventions Criticism: Through the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the foundation promoted industrial farming and GMOs.
Response: Some say this undermines traditional, sustainable farming practices and increases dependence on multinational corporations for seeds and fertilizers.
6. COVID-19 Vaccine Access Criticism: Gates opposed waiving IP rights for COVID-19 vaccines, which some argued delayed access in poorer countries.
Defense: The foundation claimed that maintaining IP was key to quality and speed, though many public health experts disagreed.
He is an interesting and unique character who achieved much but don't polish those angel wings just yet.
It's such a weird take I don't even know where to begin. Are you suggesting that all people who worked at Microsoft to make Windows and IE and all their other products had their labour "stolen" from them? If yes, can you expand on that?
What do you do for a living? Do you perform some kind of a job that you get compensated for? If yes, do you also feel like you're being stolen from?
We have a metric for the difference between what you charge for something and what you paid to provide it, it's called net income. Here's Microsoft's: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MSFT/microsoft/net...
Elsewhere, we tend to call that embezzlement.
>>What do you do for a living? Do you perform some kind of a job that you get compensated for? If yes, do you also feel like you're being stolen from?
Care to reply to this?
This is just mental gymnastics on the level of "it's not murder when the military does it!".
> Care to reply to this?
No, because it's not relevant to the discussion.
What definition of embezzlement includes both parties willingly engaging in exchange of labour for financial compensation? I think you are right, there is mental gymnastic happening, just not where you think it is.
>>No, because it's not relevant to the discussion.
How so?
The way I see it, he's wealthy because he founded a wildly successful technology company by first creating something of value (MS-DOS). Microsoft has since grown to be one of the largest companies in the world, which hundreds of thousands of people voluntarily work for in exchange for a high salary, at least for engineers.
It's perfectly accurate to say that billionaires steal from the public, it's just that what's being stolen isn't easily quantifiable because it's effectively 'potential'. Think of the constant enshittification of everything and you get a sense for what's being stolen.
This is literal theft from the working class of the fruits of their labours.
His #1 goal listed is almost offensive when you consider what is happening right now in May 2025 -- an utterly preventable scenario that he can't even mention lest it get "too political" and tar his image.
In other words, it's perfectly valid to be skeptical of his motives, which seem primarily to be around elevating his personal brand and legacy.
This goal might offend you but it doesn't offend me, and I don't think his motives (whether it's for legacy or personal brand) matter to me or the mother of a child who didn't shit itself to death because a vaccine for the rotavirus.
There are two possible reasons for this (the 'why' remains -- not enough money?):
- He's admitting he doesn't care about the environmental mission, just the returns
- He thinks tesla is a fraud, but isn't saying it publicly
Either way, it's sus, so it's tough to trust him.
Musk 1: behind the presidential podium during the inauguration with the country watching twice did a salute of the enemy of the American people in WW2. And 2: controls the vast majority of tesla shares and is their current CEO.
It is patriotic to short tesla. And Bill Gates clearly cares about the future direction of this country.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."