Gates to give away 99% of fortune by 2045, says Musk ‘killing’ world’s poorest children
Billionaire Microsoft co-founder speeds up donation plan, urges governments, wealthy people to help world’s poor
Bill Gates pledged on Thursday to give away US$200 billion 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 of 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, such as eradicating diseases like polio and malaria, ending preventable deaths among women and children, and reducing global poverty.
His announcement follows moves by governments, including the Trump 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 (Doge). Around 80 per cent of USAID programmes are set to be cut; the agency spent US$44 billion worldwide in fiscal 2023.