Philanthropy

Bill Gates donates 200 billion and accuses Elon Musk: 'Closing UsAid kills the world's poorest children'

The co-founder of Microsoft announced the relaunch of his commitment to philanthropy

8 May 2025

2' min read

Key points

A case of homonymy puts Mozambique at risk
Even Gates subject to criticism

2' min read

Clash between Bill Gates and Elon Musk. The Microsoft founder and philanthropist accuses the world's richest man of 'killing the world's poorest children' through what he called inappropriate cuts in US development aid.

Gates also announced the re-launch of his commitment to philanthropy with the decision to donate $200 billion to his foundation, much of his remaining personal wealth, with a plan to accelerate his philanthropic giving over the next 20 years and close the Gates Foundation completely in 2045.

Gates stated in an interview with the Financial Times that Tesla's boss acted out of ignorance. In February, Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DGE) de facto shut down UsAid, the main US aid channel, saying it was "time for it to die".

The co-founder of Microsoft, at one time the richest man in the world, said that the abrupt implementation of the cuts has left food and life-saving medicines to die in warehouses and could cause a resurgence of diseases such as measles, HIV and polio. 'The image of the richest man in the world killing the poorest children in the world is not a pretty one,' Gates told the Financial Times.

A case of homonymy puts Mozambique at risk

Gates said that Musk cancelled funding for a hospital in the Gaza province of Mozambique, which was helping women not to transmit the HIV virus to their children, in the mistaken belief that the US was providing condoms in the Gaza Strip in the Middle East. "I would like Musk to go and meet the children who are now infected with HIV because he cut off those funds," Gates said.

Gates, 69, announced on Thursday his intention to spend virtually his entire fortune over the next 20 years, during which time he estimates his foundation will spend more than $200 billion on global health, development, and education, compared to $100 billion spent in the previous 25 years. The Gates Foundation will close its doors in 2045, decades earlier than previously planned. Gates said the rationale behind the accelerated spending is one of maximum impact, with the potential to find definitive solutions for polio eradication and HIV treatment.

The foundation will continue to spend the bulk of its budget, which will rise to about $10 billion a year, on global health, with vaccines and maternal and child health continuing to be the focus. Gates, however, said that private philanthropy will not be able to make up the deficit resulting from cuts to UsAid, whose budget last year was $44 billion.

Even Gates is subject to criticism

However, there is no shortage of critics, who accuse Gates of using his foundation's charitable status as a tax shield and of exploiting his billions to exert undue influence on global health priorities.

Gates and Musk have clashed on philanthropy before. In 2012, Musk signed the Giving Pledge, launched by Bill and Melinda Gates and investor Warren Buffett, through which dozens of billionaires pledged to donate at least half of their wealth to charity. But Musk later told Gates that philanthropy was mostly 'bullshit' and that commercial solutions to problems like climate change, including Tesla electric vehicles, were more effective. This, at least according to Musk's biographer Walter Isaacson.

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