Bill Gates is calling out Elon Musk in brutal terms — accusing him of causing the deaths of the world’s most vulnerable kids.
In a scathing interview with the Financial Times, Gates blamed Musk for pushing the U.S. government to gut foreign aid programs. Specifically, he pointed the finger at Musk’s role in advising the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which led to massive cuts at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
“The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one,” Gates said.
The cuts, Gates claimed, were reckless. He said life-saving food and medicine were left to rot in warehouses, while deadly diseases like measles, HIV, and polio surged back.
DOGE’s push to dismantle USAID came under the Trump administration, and the agency has now been mostly absorbed into the State Department. Gates, who has partnered with USAID for years through his foundation, says Musk and DOGE acted without understanding how the agency worked.
“They carried out mass layoffs at USAID without having an understanding of the agency or how it operated,” Gates told the Times.
The comments landed on the same day Gates announced he plans to give away nearly all his wealth in the next 20 years. He says the Gates Foundation will spend more than $200 billion to tackle global health problems before shutting down entirely.
“It gives us clarity,” he said. “We’ll have a lot more money because we’re spending down over the 20 years, as opposed to making an effort to be a perpetual foundation.”
Gates, once the world’s richest man, now says he’ll leave less than 1% of his fortune to his children. His focus is on solving global problems — not building generational wealth.
“People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that ‘he died rich’ will not be one of them,” he said. “There are too many urgent problems to solve.”
