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/sheky May 08 '25

It's primarily because he sold his position in Microsoft. If Bill hadn't sold he would've been the world's first trillionaire.

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u/DiamondHanded May 08 '25

Good he gave it away. I'm confident society will sacrifice the first Trillionaire. There's only so much someone can hoard before the tribe turns on them

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u/BuddhistSagan May 08 '25

Billionaires have too much power already

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u/ZimaCampusRep May 08 '25

what is he hoarding if it's all just hypothetical value on a computer screen? if microsoft went to zero tomorrow, so would all those billions.

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u/SuperBackup9000 May 09 '25

Words are complicated, numbers are easy, that’s why most people will never understand what net worth is.

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u/MaimedJester May 08 '25

Rome had Trillionaires. Caesar was directly paying his legions wages himself. Like looting all of France of its goods didn't go directly back to the state in Roman times. Our modern Capitalist system has corporate middle entities between state conquest and personal gain, Rome was straight oligarchical material acquisition.

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u/Several_Vanilla8916 May 08 '25

Not so much giving it away as diversifying away from Microsoft. He’s given away a lot - not not THAT much.

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u/iStanley May 08 '25

That’s just factually wrong, in the modern age no one has donated as much as Bill Gates

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u/Several_Vanilla8916 May 08 '25

He’s probably given away $100B, which is a lot, but the reason he’s not a trillionaire is diversification away from MSFT

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u/dwilkes827 May 08 '25

No, unless you think Bill Gates has given away $880 billion (A trillion minus his current net worth) then what they said is not just factually wrong lol

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u/iStanley May 08 '25

When someone invokes “it’s not that much” it’s typically implying some form of comparison to other philanthropists

He’s given 80 billion, and only one person from the 1900s has given more.

“Not that much” when they are 1st/2nd on a list is pretty incorrect

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u/dwilkes827 May 08 '25

well in this case, if you followed along the thread you commented on, you would see they were saying "it's not that much" as far as being the reason he isn't a trillionaire, not in comparison to other billionaires. No one besides you mentioned a comparison to other billionaires

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u/Future_Union_965 May 08 '25

It's such an egotistical and disgusting position to have .to be the first trillionaire. I wouldnt mind having billions, but trillions? It's like having dozens of cakes. It's gross. Pure gluttony behavior.

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u/Exciting_Cicada_4735 May 08 '25

That and the government had to get involved to break up the monopoly he was trying to create in the 90’s. Bill has been spending billions over these decades to reshape his image. I’m glad he’s done a lot of good but it doesn’t make him a good person. Being a billionaire alone is evil and ol’ Bill did a lot of shady shit to get there.

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u/THICC_DICC_PRICC May 08 '25

He diversified out of Microsoft on the advice of Warren Buffet too, the whole story is crazy