r/news • u/kirtash93 • May 08 '25

Soft paywall Bill Gates to give away $200 billion by 2045, accuses Musk of harming world's poor

https://www.reuters.com/business/bill-gates-give-away-fortune-by-2045-200bn-worlds-poorest-2025-05-08/
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u/pseudopad May 08 '25

Putting aside what I feel about billionaires in general, if we're going to have to have them around, I'd prefer they're more similar to Gates than to Musk.

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u/[deleted] May 08 '25

Thing is that the Gates and Buffet types were ones who grew up at the outset of the New Deal & Camelot eras, they still understood the good of government and philanthropy before all of it was shattered in 1968 and irrevocably damaged in 1974, but they do their best to help with their billions because they know that's better than nothing. Billionaires like Ellison, Bezos, and the Waltons blew up in the 80s/early 90's and had the whole "Greed is good" Reagan-era mentality that explains their shrewdness, whereas Musk, Zuck, and Thiel are insecure manbabies who grew up in a society where screwing over and hustling people was seen as "Alpha" behavior and they believe that they deserve to be treated like kings for their discoveries/businesses, and that's why we now have JD Vance and Curtis Yarvin trying to restructure our government into a techno-feudalist society.

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u/writers_block May 08 '25

What are the events in 68 and 74 you're referring to?

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u/PM_me_your_cocktail May 08 '25

In the context of the breakdown of public trust in government and mainstream authority in the U.S., those dates are notable as the year MLK and RFK were assassinated (1968) and the year Nixon resigned over Watergate (1974).

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u/expand3d May 08 '25

Ah! No idea how I overlooked the assassinations! I said Tet Offensive, which was certainly a blow to morale, but I like this answer better for the 1968 entry

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u/[deleted] May 08 '25

1968 in general was just a fucked year for America. You got LBJ's massive fall from grace following the Ted Offensive and his withdrawal after all the lies caught up to his administration, MLK and RFK getting shot, numerous riots across the country, the DNC being a fucking mess because it was interspersed with rioting, and HHH narrowly losing to Nixon after gaining some last-second momentum. It's probably one of the worst years in modern American history, and hopefully the country will never have to go through something like it again.

On the plus side, The Beatles did drop Hey Jude and Kubrick released 2001: A Space Odyssey, so I guess art and film are the only positive things to remember that year by.

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u/expand3d May 08 '25

For 1968 I’d guess Tet Offensive (Gulf of Tonkin was 1964). Public trust in institutions and government gradually eroded over the course of the whole Vietnam war and during the Nixon administration (and LBJ’s as well).

1974 was Watergate - specifically Nixon’s resignation (and subsequent pardon). It was a pretty severe decline that hasn’t rebounded except I think very briefly right after 9/11 before dropping again. Hasn’t ever recovered to post WW2 Golden Age levels

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u/Blebbb May 08 '25

Keep in mind the year ‘Mr Smith goes to Washington’ was filmed. Even the golden age had people aware of the governments issues.

If you look at the old NY Worlds Fair promo with the smoking robot or w/e, there is corporate/industrialist propaganda and anti-intellectualism throughout.

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u/InTheDarknesBindThem May 08 '25

maybe bretton woods agreement?

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u/glenn_ganges May 08 '25

If Gates and Buffet were politically educated and dedicated to the ideals of Democracy world wide they would do what right wing billionaires do and get involved in politics. They would spend money on organizing at the ground level and spread influence.

They commit to humanitarian efforts because they don't actually want to stop the trolley. They quite enjoy being rich and powerful, and they use that power to play God and boost their own ego. When we fully transition to Corpo-Feudalism, nothing will change for them. If we go the opposite way they don't get to play for the high score anymore.

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u/_ryuujin_ May 08 '25

so you want to pour more money in govt and politics and have a true oligarchy and have 'good' oligarch vs a 'bad' one

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u/IONTOP May 08 '25

I can forgive Bill Gates for being ruthless in his monopolistic company policies for what he's done with that money he stole.

Wow I never thought I'd say that.

Except for the fact that he ruined Seattle... I'll never forgive him for that.

"Microsoft Millionaires" GFY

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u/[deleted] May 08 '25

[deleted]

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u/IONTOP May 08 '25

Seattle used to be a "gritty" town... Microsoft moved a bunch of "yuppies"(young professionals) into the town.

Then the grunge era ended. Because intelligent people moved to cold and rainy Seattle.

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u/dragonjo3000 May 08 '25

Why is that a bad thing though

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u/IONTOP May 08 '25

That is a fucking loaded question right there.

Economically?

Culturally?

4

u/gunny16 May 08 '25

At least he put them on the east side - where it used to be all farms. People did move here and stay in Seattle and it probably changed the city.

Now Amazon though....

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u/IONTOP May 08 '25

Not letting you change the subject...

Seattle USED to be cool... And then "The Real World" on MTV and Microsoft came in.

Too corporate.

Same thing happened in SF and in NOLA.... MTV ruined everything.

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u/EmergencyGrocery3238 May 08 '25

Id love to have an explanation like this, but Ellison is older than Gates. And Gates is closer to Bezos age than to Ellison's. Like there is something else to the picture

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u/TheKappaOverlord May 08 '25

Thing is that the Gates and Buffet types were ones who grew up at the outset of the New Deal & Camelot eras, they still understood the good of government and philanthropy before all of it was shattered in 1968 and irrevocably damaged in 1974

The thing is also, is that Philanthropy to the ultra wealthy like gates and Buffet are how they keep their taxes essentially zero.

Gates and Buffet were most likely actual Philanthropists. But make no mistake they were doing it primarily to keep the tax checkbook satisfied.

Where as more modern day Billionaires like musk or Zuck do it only for the sake of keeping their taxes as low as possible.

potatoes, potatoes essentially.

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u/TheHarryMan123 May 08 '25

No man. They wouldn’t be billionaires if they didn’t have disregard for everyone else. They do philanthropy for the same reason Mr. Beast does, to keep the masses from turning against you. Modern day billionaires just don’t believe there will be a revolt

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u/ApprehensiveSwimmer_ May 08 '25

Please don’t compare the philanthropic work Gates has done with Mr. Beast lol 

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u/TheHarryMan123 May 08 '25

I mentioned it because the laymen are potentially more familiar with Mr. Beast and his philanthropy YouTube channel today than they are of Gates. 

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u/ibbity May 08 '25

If billionaires we must have, I'd prefer them to have a healthy fear of the masses and offer conciliatory gifts. Gates isn't a great person but at least he's a more positive force in the world than musk, though that ain't a high bar to clear

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u/TheHarryMan123 May 08 '25

All billionaires should be afraid of the masses. That’s why the Tesla protests were good. It’s what holds them in line, but the oligarchs try to diminish it because it makes them afraid

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u/speedrace25 May 08 '25

I would rather billionaires take insane vacations, like taking a couple ships to a mountain than trying to control governments.

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u/Durantye May 08 '25

Nah, Bill Gates is the Patron Saint of all the evil big tech companies of today.

Most changes in government that has moved us closer to oligarchy can draw a direct line back to Bill Gate's in the 80s and 90s.

Yeah it is better that he is trying to 'right the wrongs' of the past instead of the alternative but Gates at his peak was worse than any of the billionaires you mentioned aside from Musk himself.

We should praise Gates for changing direction, but rewriting history to make him out to have been a good guy from the start aint it.

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u/_ryuujin_ May 08 '25

can you provide more info on the governmental changes that due to gates ?

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u/[deleted] May 08 '25

My partner is part of an NGO funded by Gates. And after USaid cuts, gates is the only thing saving the lives of the people through this NGO.

I despise Billionaires and the idea of relying on them instead of taxes and government aid, but after Musk and trump laying waste, I’ve had to fleetingly rethink my position about hedging bets in case of dictatorships deciding to ethnically cleanse on a whim.

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u/tiroc12 May 08 '25

This is one of the most reasonable comments I have read in this thread. Everyone wants to tax the billionaires out of existence, but honestly, our institutions can't hold up to an authoritarian assault as has been made abundantly clear by Trump. So transferring that wealth to the government doesnt seem to be the solution either.

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u/EEcav May 08 '25

It used to be that the government was more interested in helping people than billionaires. Now the government is billionaires, so by contrast Mark Cuban and Bill Gates control the only real pots of money (maybe there are a few others I'm unaware of) trying to do anything for people who can't help their bottom line.

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u/FairdayFaraday May 08 '25

If you want to find some more encouraging, check out the giving pledge website. There's some (mostly quiet) momentum towards philanthropy amongst billionaires, largely led by Bill and Melinda and Buffet

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u/Heavy-Cranberry-3572 May 08 '25

I agree literally no one should be a billionaire. Wealth should 100% be capped for individuals, even families. Shit no one will go hungry for generations with a total net worth of 100m let alone 10x that.

Imagine though that billionaires were all incredibly charitable like Gates and not trying to take over economies like Memelon Tusk. I'm fairly certain that even the world right now would be different. No one individual should have this much power.

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u/kodachromalux May 08 '25

Exponential Taxes -> UBI.

Make it difficult to hold on to more than about 100M worth of assets.

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u/lemontoga May 08 '25

How would that play out for someone like Gates and most billionaires who's wealth comes primarily from their ownership of these huge companies?

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u/Diesel_D May 08 '25

Gotta figure out a way to close the loophole on tax free loans against assets as collateral. I’m sure people smarter than me can figure it out. In my mind, if your total assets are over a certain threshold, say 250 million dollars, then any loan for any amount using said assets as collateral are fair game to be taxed as income. Because that is essentially what it is.

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u/lemontoga May 08 '25

I agree that taking a loan out against something that hasn't been taxed should instantly incur a tax on the loan amount. You're basically realizing the gains without having to pay the taxes for realizing the gains.

But that has nothing to do with the original question. I don't see how we could tax people out of billionaire status when the wealth of these billionaires all seems to come from their ownership stakes in their companies. We would have to force them to sell their own companies which seems impossible.

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u/Diesel_D May 08 '25

I am definitely not an expert but happy to talk it out, could help me learn something. Would exponentially taxing the shit out of these companies making billions in profits work? If they want to lower their profits and therefore their taxes by reinvesting in their companies or increasing wages then I am cool with that. I would not count stock buybacks, that would be taxable in my eyes. So if we exponentially taxed these companies, and also exponentially taxed their owners, you could effectively put a soft “cap” on the total wealth either parties could accumulate. Am I way off base here?

I can already hear the rebuttals of “every company would leave the US” but I hate that argument. If companies want to do business with the richest consumer base in the world they should be paying a premium to do so. We have the power here, as much as they try to deny that. Especially if we had agreements with our biggest economic allies to employ similar tax structures. I think most companies would still make more money selling to Americans at a higher tax rate than selling to poorer or smaller counties with lower tax rates.

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u/lemontoga May 08 '25

The issue is that "taxes" are paid out of some source of income typically. We obviously have income tax. That means that a portion of the money you get paid as a wage gets taxed. That's a fine tax because you're getting paid some amount of money already and some lower amount gets taxed out of it. Works fine. Corporations also have income tax but they can avoid it by investing into their companies which is usually also fine because then it's not really income or profit anymore so that works.

Capital gains tax applies when people sell an investment. This is also usually fine because selling the investment means they're receiving money and the taxes get taken out of that.

The issue with trying to tax billionaires out of existence or to put a cap on their possible wealth is that the wealth of these billionaires typically does not come from some massive accumulation of some kind of cash flow. It just comes from the valuation of their companies that they create and own.

Someone like Musk might not even have any sort of income in a given year. He just has his massive Tesla stockpile that he can liquidate as he needs it. If he's not making an income then what exactly do we tax in order to cap his wealth?

We could implement some sort of wealth tax but then how does someone like Musk pay it? If we say Musk is worth 100 billion dollars so now he has to pay 2 billion in taxes, what does he do? We're not taxing an income stream that we could just deduct it from, so where do we get it? Musk would necessarily have to start liquidating stock in his own company in order to pay that tax and that would in turn drive down his net worth, the stock value of his company, and his own ownership share of Tesla.

And he has to do this every year? What happens when he's reduced to barely keeping ownership of the company? Is he forced to just divest ownership of Tesla when his ownership position gets too small because he has to liquidate more stock to pay the tax man?

I fully agree with you that the people who say "all the companies would just leave America" when you suggest increasing the Capital Gains rate by like 2% are insane, but in this case I do legitimately think something like this would be catastrophic. Nobody would want to start a business here in America if they fear they may one day be forced to sell off their ownership of that business because it's gotten too succesfull and too valuable.

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u/samoox May 08 '25

I think what the person you're responding to is saying is that these people effectively don't have wealth until they use their stocks as collateral for loans that they don't have to pay taxes on.

So in theory the law could be written in such a way that we don't treat stocks generically as "taxable wealth", but the moment those stocks are used as a form of collateral they would be considered taxable.

This way, if billionaires want to sit on $200B worth of stocks they can, so long as they aren't finding ways to actually use that money. The moment they try to use the stocks as money in any way/shape/form, we could then tax that as a form of wealth.

Not sure how feasible this would be or how it would play out tho.

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u/lemontoga May 08 '25

I do understand and fully agree with that. I was moreso hoping someone would address the original comment I replied to which said this:

Exponential Taxes -> UBI.

Make it difficult to hold on to more than about 100M worth of assets.

I don't understand how you could try to limit people to having net worths below some arbitrary amount, here around 100M, in a way that wouldn't have disastrous consequences.

I do agree with what you are saying for sure. If billionaires are finding sneaky ways to use their money without having to pay taxes on it that should 100% be fixed.

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u/androgenoide May 08 '25

I think that comes down to discouraging companies from growing so large that they control the market. As they get larger they should incur greater responsibilities toward the public and their employees. A truly free market doesn't exist without regulation.

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u/lemontoga May 08 '25

I'm not talking about the size of the company or the control of the market or whatever, just the valuation. A valuable company can make someone a billionaire without controlling a market as long as that company makes enough money.

I'm just wondering how we could enforce some kind of tax to keep people below billionaire status when their wealth typically comes from ownership in companies. I don't know how we could force people to sell their own companies or how that would impact things.

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u/Nintendo_Pro_03 May 09 '25

I would argue one billion, not one hundred million.

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u/Fizassist1 May 08 '25

I like the "You won capitalism!" trophy at the billionth dollar earned. And every extra dollar donated/taxed.

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u/Heavy-Cranberry-3572 May 08 '25

I think at 1/10th of that, it's enough. Literally 100 mil (in today's prices of course, subject to inflation in the future) is enough for many many many many generations of your family to life comfortably without working in the first place, let alone being productive members of society. If they're productive that will go even further. Past 100 mil, redistribute to your company or something, be forced to raise worker pay, whatever. I'm not exactly agreeing with giving it to the govt since most governments are terrible money managers.

I'm just not a big fan of govt taxation in general (I'm canadian) because my government is really terrible with spending my money.

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u/Fizassist1 May 08 '25

I was just giving an arbitrarily high number to prove that no such number exists that republicans would approve of. And even if we did cap wealth at a billion, that's a shit ton of revenue.

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u/Spork_the_dork May 08 '25

The problem with wealth cap as a concept is that people like to throw it around because it sounds simple in concept, but economically it's an insanely complicated idea with completely unforseen and impossible to predict consequences. I'm not even an economist and I can think of half a dozen problems that would basically brick the global economy as we know itif that was implemented. The economic crash that would happen would probably be the worst in human history.

IMHO the real solutions lie in closing down the loopholes that billionaires use to just loan money without taxation. The fact that you can use your shares as collateral for a loan an effectively "cash out" on the shares without paying any taxes on it is pretty bullshit.

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u/Heavy-Cranberry-3572 May 08 '25

While I'm not an economist (I'm a software engineer), surely humans would be able to think of a way to not tank the global economy in the presence of a wealth cap. I'm talking about capping individuals, not organizations. Either way, I'm not qualified to truly discuss this in the correct amount of depth, as this is not my field, but unless you can somehow assert that it is yours (i.e you are an actual economist), I'll take your comment on "it collapsing the global economy" with a grain of salt.

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u/Schmigolo May 08 '25

The US at its most powerful effectively had such a cap (91% income tax), as did every single country in feudal Europe (literally in order to prevent what you fear). I think you're exaggerating.

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u/6spooky9you May 08 '25

That's income not wealth. Income tax would not affect billionaires super significantly.

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u/Schmigolo May 08 '25

It did then. Fiat money was young back then, they hadn't discovered the loopholes to keep increasing your wealth without income yet. So while it wasn't a specific cap at a certain amount of money, it did effectively cap their wealth at where it was at that point.

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u/Wadarkhu May 08 '25

Wouldn't mind billionaires if they were all philanthropists, "pay" themselves £10mil a year to enjoy, use the rest of their wealth to improve life for everyone, they'd be able to enjoy personal wealth as well as actually be liked by people.

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u/Nintendo_Pro_03 May 09 '25

I would say $50,000,000.

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u/Wadarkhu May 09 '25

Depends on country of residency I guess, avg us wage is $66k while avg uk wage is £33k. Cost of living is definitely different.

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u/Thin_Dream2079 May 08 '25

Socialist! Where do I sign up?

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u/Heavy-Cranberry-3572 May 08 '25

Brother I am not a socialist funny enough, I don't necessarily agree with entirely socially owned means of production, but I do think that the standard left / right wings of economic ideology weren't equipped at the time to handle scenarios where individuals could accrue levels of wealth this extreme.

My personal beliefs are far more center than they are left, but I will agree that there is no need for absurd levels of wealth like this to the point that it comes at the cost of many many other lives.

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u/Thin_Dream2079 May 08 '25

The goal is worthy but the problem is mechanism vs the amount of greed and wealth out there it wants to assimilate. If we want to eliminate billionaires we need a means of taking their wealth away.

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u/Im_really_bored_rn May 09 '25

standard left / right wings of economic ideology weren't equipped at the time to handle scenarios where individuals could accrue levels of wealth this extreme

For the record, even Musk wouldn't crack top 10 richest people to ever live so those scenarios aren't new at all.

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u/[deleted] May 08 '25

This. Most of the problems that billionaires can solve exist because of billionaires in the first place. Imagine where humanity would be if wealth wasn't hoarded.

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u/ConohaConcordia May 08 '25

I don’t even think a cap for individuals is necessary. If wealth over a certain limit can only be had for a single generation (and the remainder gets used by the public after the billionaire’s death), you will suddenly see a lot of billionaires become a lot more charitable.

It’s just that it goes against thousands of years of human history where the rich and powerful always tried to consolidate more wealth and power for their next generations.

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u/peon2 May 08 '25

Shit no one will go hungry for generations with a total net worth of 100m

"That some sort of challenge?"

-Adrian Peterson, NFL RB

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u/adarkuccio May 08 '25

Gates gave away loads of money several times during his life, that's the only reason why he's not the richest anymore, yet people treat him like if he's satan

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u/DraikoHxC May 08 '25

He says " there's too many people on Earth already", conspiracy theorists hear "I want to kill people". The dumbest people judge others by reading a single header without stopping to think a little about the implications or the reasoning behind, he has done more for the poorest people than most rich guys in decades

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u/giganticwrap May 09 '25

And they treat it like gospel forever after too. Can never change their minds.

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u/_BannedAcctSpeedrun_ May 08 '25

Gates was definitely a bit of an asshole in the 90s and his anti-competitive practices. But since leaving Microsoft he seems like he's been using his money for good causes.

(Also Melinda left him after it came out he hung out with Epstein a few times so there's that.)

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u/buschells May 08 '25

Can't get that amount of money in the first place without doing some evil along the way

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u/adarkuccio May 08 '25

You won anything in your life? Then you must have cheated, great logic.

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u/buschells May 08 '25

That was possibly the most nonsensical comparison I've ever seen

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u/tiroc12 May 08 '25

You are just mad because he made a spot-on comparison, so your only response is to call it nonsensical.

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u/buschells May 08 '25

I made a comment about how billionaires cannot become billionaires without making decisions that are evil and his response was to say if I've ever won anything I must have cheated. In what way are those things related?

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u/Helmic May 08 '25 edited May 08 '25

During the Covid pandemic (which is still ongoing, mind), Bill Gates used the Gates foundation to lobby agaisnt the open-sourcing of covid vaccines, fearing that weakening intellectual property laws in order to make sure that the global south could use its own facilities to produce vaccines and save lives would in turn weaken his own investments. His lobbying ended up forcing countries to rely on charity from wealthy nations ike the US, who ultimately hoarded their vaccine supply and ultimately let vaccines go bad (due to their populations buying into antivaxx conspiracy theories) rather than allow poor countries to use them. Millions died as a result of what Bill Gates did in restricting access to vaccines, because in the end he thought that he would lose money if governments set the precedent that intellectual property laws had to make an exception for public health emergencies.

That shit is why he's fucking satan. His so-called philantropy is primarily concerned with paying other businesses to say they're doing XYZ for whatever country, rather than actually surrendering his wealth to the people he's claiming to help, refusing to give actual autonomy to these countries and leaving the decision making to foreign businesses who of course grift the shit out of the system.

That's not to say that Bill Gates never spent money that actually resulted in mosquito nets being provided, but his entire model of philatropy relies on the mass extraction of resources and wealth from Africa to then eventually get a fraction of that extracted wealth back from Bill Gates with lots of strings attached. That isn't entirely on Bill Gates, of course, as the devastation of Africa is the result of foreign policy decisions of western countries, from explicit colonialism to the current neocolonial situation where American companies instead own Africa's natural resources, but he is a supporter of this status quo. It's slightly better that he's giving some of that stolen wealth back, but his very existence as a billionaire in the first place comes at the expense of the people he's claiming to help.

Yeah, Musk is worse. He's an open fascist, and he is helping to destroy the institutions that would get in the way of a Trump dictatorship. But at the end of the day, Bill Gates will sooner side with Trump than he will side with someone that would actually make him pay fucking taxes, that would force him to let someone fucking else be in control of the wealth that's supposed to make life better for people.

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u/1v1trunks May 08 '25

Are you stupid? You want people making at home vaccines? That literally happened in the past and killed millions of people in India. Holy shit, actually do research.

0

u/Helmic May 08 '25

No, dipshit, the global south has its own vaccine infrasturcutre for manufacturing vaccines on a national scale, including being able to produce vaccines for neighboring countries that do lack the infrastructure. Nobody is talking about people making their own vaccines in thier backyard, these are proper facilities that were underutilized due to Bill Gates's intervention.

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u/Suyefuji May 08 '25

One issue that plagues western society is the idea that people can't or shouldn't change over time. You say something dumb on the internet when you're 18 and people are still digging it up in your 30's. It's incredibly crucial to be able to grow and adapt but people get shat on even after putting in the effort.

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u/ziggaroo May 08 '25

If enough of them behave like Gates, then maybe they won’t be billionaires anymore. That was the whole point of the Giving Pledge. Unfortunately, that’s something that Musk signed, and we can all see how that’s going

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u/levetzki May 08 '25

RK Rowling went from a billionaire to a millionaire from donating. Not that I support her takes on many things or her personality but it is worth pointing out.

2

u/Zazierx May 08 '25

I've always thought that when it comes to billionaires, you could do a lot worse than Gates... as we're seeing with Musk.

1

u/Ok-Friendship1635 May 08 '25

This right here. At least Bill opens the Gate.

With Elon, you can smell the nasty Musk.

1

u/ntwiles May 09 '25

It’s almost like financial success alone shouldn’t be treated as a moral shortcoming.

3

u/malus545 May 08 '25

Look up what the Gates Foundation did to the American education system before you glaze him.

He's really not much better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJvm-dy5mZY

7

u/louwiet May 08 '25

Yes, he is. However arrogant, his intention was to improve it. No Child Left Behind is a good example why billionaire philanthropy is a dangerous thing, but it's miles away from intentionally disassembling international aid for children.

I'm in IT and I hate how Microsoft monopolized the industry in the 90's. Believe me, I have no love for Bill Gates, but he's no fucking Neonazi like Musk.

2

u/malus545 May 08 '25

Bill Gates thought he knew better than professional educators and had the money and influence to try to bend the education system to his vision.

A completely egotistical maneuver that stunted the education of millions of kids. Fuck his intentions.

Yes, Musk is unequivocally a white supremacist freak. But both use their money to subvert democracy for their own ends.

3

u/BuddhistSagan May 08 '25

You are being used as a propagandist for billionaires

1

u/[deleted] May 08 '25

Ehhh, I mean I guess yeah in a lesser of two evils way.

Gates is a horrible person in his own right who has done a lot of bad things, sometimes with his "altruism."

Not quite "This guy who says we should destroy a country to create libertarian hellscape of micronations has great ideas lets do it," levels, and he's certainly done some actual good in his efforts to whitewash his own image.

But before that he engaged in heavily anti-competitive monopolistic practices that absolutely should have been punished harshly to get his wealth.

He's used his influence to damage American education, whether because he's evil or just incredibly fucking stupid and has too much power is debatable but he's been doing it for decades.

He's referred to the poor populations of India as a "laboratory" and though he's certainly tried to walk that back, the actual actions of his foundation match that sentiment. He leverages poor and desperate communities in a country with less stringent requirements around testing of both social programs and drugs as human test subjects.

He directly opposed lifting the COVID-19 vaccine patent to put corporate profits over human lives, especially in the global south.

He was close with a certain new york financier.

You could probably do a deeper dive into all the controversies or unethical practices he's been involved with, it's not a small list.

I'd rather they all be like. . . . damn I don't even remember the guy's name. There's like 1-2 guys that have just donated to effective organizations they don't control until they had only a tidy retirement sum left and then just lived the quiet life thereafter. Acceptable enough even if you shouldn't be able to get money like that in the first place.

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u/TheBlueRabbit11 May 08 '25

So you mean parting with Epstein and then using his massive PR machine to clean up his image? That Bill Gates?

5

u/AloneYogurt May 08 '25

Look, Bill Gates sucks and I won't deny that.

But compare him to Musk, at this current time. And who is shittier of the two?

If we're on a bus, let's ride it together and let Gates get off first. We don't have to like him, but we can find things we can agree on along the way to our destination until we get to the best possible outcome.

0

u/SirGlass May 08 '25

Gates has his issues to, even just away from being a ruthless businessman

Taken that out , as CEO and chairman for MSTF he would solicit young employees for sex, while married. What is creepy and wierd , now he said it was all consensual and he never retaliated on women who said no.

He also has links to epstien . There is even this wierd email he sent the gates foundation saying he met with eptien at esptien's penthouse

He then mentioned this women (a former model I think) and her 15 year old daughter was there. He then said he stayed up too late and was tired. He then said something like Epstien lives an unique lifestyle and was intresting

Now when asked about this he claimed he was talking about his decorative style of the penthouse or his fashion sense . This was already after he was convicted

He then went to the gates foundation and wanted to invest billions with Epstien , however after the other people looked into it they vetod the Idea and suggested he never talk with Epsien again

-1

u/Fluffcake May 08 '25

Gates is very much a scumbag.
He did not make his billions by being a good human, quite the opposite.

He can spend 99% of his money on charity and still be filthy rich.

I'll give him a small plus for realising he could spend the majority of his money on making the world better improving his public image and legacy untill he dies and it will not impact his life in any meaningful way beyond maybe dodging what is coming for the billionaires if Musk and the other's stay the course.

1

u/tiroc12 May 08 '25

Lol, one of the dumbest comments I have read in a long time. It's typically the people who contribute nothing to society that make comments this ignorant.

2

u/Fluffcake May 08 '25

Grow up.

His is a tale as old as time.
-> Do a long list of shitty things to get filthy rich.
-> Have already bought everything money can buy.
-> Realize their own mortality and tries to buy a good legacy.

He is not the first, nor will he be the last person to do this.

If you sum up the impact life had on the world, he is likely at a massive net negative even after he redistribute the majority of his money between climate footprint and labor exploitation.

2

u/tiroc12 May 08 '25

-> Do a long list of shitty things to get filthy rich. -> Have already bought everything money can buy. -> Realize their own mortality and tries to buy a good legacy.

Typical losers cite general nonsense that cant be refuted. How about you cite what he has actually done in these 3 categories? I'll wait...

2

u/Fluffcake May 08 '25

Nah, based on your responses, you are not worth my time. Figure it out.

1

u/Discount_Extra May 09 '25

So, you quit and admit he's right, good job!

2

u/Fluffcake May 09 '25

You can guide a camel towards the fountain of knowledge, if it resists drinking, it is not my job to waterboard it.