LONDON (Reuters) -Bill Gates pledged on Thursday to give away some $200 billion to the world’s poorest people in the next two decades.
The 69-year-old billionaire co-founder of Microsoft spoke to Reuters shortly after announcing his decision to accelerate donations through his foundation at a time when the Trump administration is terminating billions in funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development and other wealthy nations pull back on foreign aid.
Here are some key comments from the interview:
ON FOREIGN AID CUTS AND ELON MUSK
“The number of deaths will start going up for the first time. They went down from around 10 million to less than 5 million. And now it’s going to be millions of more deaths because of the resources.”
“The abrupt cutoff (on USAID) that was made was pretty surprising, and in the conversations I had with President Trump, he sounded quite supportive of the HIV work.”
“I think Elon hasn’t been out in the field and met these USAID workers like I have. I think it’s heroic work, and I think what he did over that weekend is very unfortunate, including this characterizing what the money was being spent on.”
“He said he worked that weekend instead of having fun, and I wish he’d done it the other way.”
“I’m a great admirer of a lot of things Elon does … but it’s not him at this point, it’s the U.S. Congress that will make the final decision.”
ON POLIO
“Polio is one where the Gates Foundation is significantly the biggest funder, but the U.S. government, up until now, has been the second-biggest funder. We need them to rededicate themselves, or else that disease will spread back.”
ON GLOBAL HEALTH RESEARCH
“Well, for global health… . We’ve got the last 25 years, which have been miraculous … I think we can be pretty optimistic about the next 20 years, that we’ll be able to do some disease eradication.”
“But in the near term, it’s hard to overstate how surprised I am that we’re in tough shape.”
“I believe the world does have values. That’s what my parents taught me.”
ON CONVINCING U.S. CONGRESS TO SPEND MORE ON AID
“Come to Africa, let’s see what the mothers say.”
(Reporting by Jennifer Rigby; Compiled by Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru; Editing by Paul Simao)
