Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates launched a scathing attack on Elon Musk, accusing the world’s richest man of “killing the world’s poorest children” following cuts to US foreign assistance.
“The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one,” Gates told the Financial Times (FT) newspaper.
Gates pointed to Musk’s decision to cut funding to a hospital in Mozambique’s Gaza Province, which had been helping to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Musk initially claimed the grants were supplying condoms to the Gaza Strip — a claim he later admitted was mistaken.
“I’d love for him to go in and meet the children that have now been infected with HIV because he cut that money,” said Gates.
Gates, 69, said the Gates Foundation plans to spend virtually his entire fortune in the next 20 years, doubling his foundation’s past spending to more than $200 billion, before closing it by 2045, according to the FT.
He warned, however, that private philanthropy cannot make up the funding gap left by cuts to USAID, which had a $44 billion budget last year.