Bill Gates has lashed out at Elon Musk, accusing the world’s richest man of “killing the world’s poorest children” through huge cuts to the U.S. foreign aid budget.
It comes as Gates pledged to give away $200 billion via his charitable foundation by 2045.
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, earlier than previously planned.
Gates said he hoped the money would help eradicate diseases like polio and malaria, end preventable deaths among women and children, and reduce global poverty.
His announcement follows moves by governments, including President Donald Trump’s administration, to slash international aid budgets. The U.S. cuts have been overseen by the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one,” Gates told the Financial Times.
In an interview with Reuters, Gates warned of a stark reversal to decades of progress in reducing mortality in the next four to six years due to the funding cuts.
“The number of deaths will start going up for the first time … it’s going to be millions more deaths because of the resources,” Gates told Reuters.
“I think governments will come back to caring about children surviving” over the next 20-year period though, he said.
Gates and Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, once agreed over the role of the wealthy in giving away money to help others, but have since clashed several times. “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,” Gates wrote in a post on his website.
“There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people.”
He added: “It’s unclear whether the world’s richest countries will continue to stand up for its poorest people,” noting cuts from major donors including Britain and France alongside the U.S., the world’s biggest donor.
Gates said that despite the foundation’s deep pockets, progress would not be possible without government support. He praised the response to aid cuts in Africa, where some governments have reallocated budgets, but said that as an example polio would not be eradicated without U.S. funding. Gates made the announcement on the foundation’s 25th anniversary. He set up the organization with his then-wife Melinda French Gates in 2000, and they were later joined by billionaire investor Warren Buffett. “I have come a long way since I was just a kid starting a software company with my friend from middle school,” Gates said.
Since inception, the foundation has given away $100 billion, helping to save millions of lives and backing initiatives like the vaccine group Gavi and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. It will close after it spends around 99% of Gates’ personal fortune, he said. The founders originally expected the foundation to wrap up in the decades after their deaths.
