Gates Accuses Musk Of Killing Poor Children, Pledges To Donate $200 Billion

Bill Gates pledged on Thursday (May 8, 2025) to give away $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 U.S. 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. Mr. Gates said he believed the money would help achieve several of his goals, such as eradicating diseases including 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 U.S. cuts have been overseen by Mr. Musk, who has publicly bragged about feeding the U.S. Agency for International Development "into the wood chipper," and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Around 80% of USAID programmes are set to be cut; the agency spent $44 billion worldwide in fiscal 2023.