Washington: In a sweeping philanthropic move, Bill Gates has committed to donating $200 billion through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation by the year 2045, accelerating the pace of his charitable giving and aiming to sunset the foundation two decades earlier than initially planned.
The Microsoft co-founder, now 69, made the announcement on the foundation’s 25th anniversary, underscoring the urgency of global challenges such as infectious diseases, maternal and child mortality, and poverty. “There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people,” Gates said in a post on his website.
Gates’s announcement came with sharp criticism directed at Elon Musk, who he accused of severely undermining global aid efforts by overseeing sweeping cuts to U.S. foreign assistance programs. Gates directly blamed Musk, now the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), for dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), calling the repercussions catastrophic. “The image of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one,” he told the Financial Times.
Musk has previously boasted about his role in slashing foreign aid spending, declaring that USAID had been “fed into the wood chipper.” According to government sources, roughly 80 percent of the agency’s programs are set to be eliminated, representing a dramatic reduction from the $44 billion spent globally in 2023.
In an interview with Reuters, Gates warned that the rollback in aid would reverse decades of progress in global health and development. “The number of deaths will start going up for the first time … it's going to be millions more deaths because of the resources being taken away,” he said.
Under Gates’s accelerated plan, the foundation’s annual spending will reach $9 billion by 2026, rising to approximately $10 billion thereafter. By 2045, it will have spent nearly all of Gates’s current fortune, estimated at $108 billion, leaving just one percent behind.
Despite the vast sums, Gates stressed that philanthropy alone cannot replace governmental responsibility. “We cannot fill the gap left by governments,” he warned, though he expressed hope that public institutions will eventually recommit to humanitarian values.
The two billionaires have had a strained relationship in recent years. Once aligned on the importance of giving back, they have since clashed over issues ranging from pandemic response to development policy. When asked if he had attempted to change Musk’s mind about the foreign aid cuts, Gates indicated it was now a matter for Congress.
Musk responded bluntly on his X platform, calling Gates “a huge liar” in reaction to a shared interview segment.
The Gates Foundation, launched in 2000 with Melinda French Gates and later joined by Warren Buffett, has so far donated around $100 billion to global causes including vaccines, disease eradication, and health infrastructure. It has also drawn scrutiny over its influence in international health policy and governance.
In closing, Gates reiterated his belief in human solidarity: “The world does have values. That’s what my parents taught me.”
