Tag Archives: Bill Gates

The Associated Press reports: According to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll, 44 percent of Republicans believe that Bill Gates is plotting to use a mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign as a pretext to implant microchips in billions of people and monitor their movements — a widely debunked conspiracy theory with no basis in fact. The survey, which was conducted May 20 …

The New York Times reports: In a 2015 speech, Bill Gates warned that the greatest risk to humanity was not nuclear war but an infectious virus that could threaten the lives of millions of people. That speech has resurfaced in recent weeks with 25 million new views on YouTube — but not in the way that Mr. Gates probably intended. …

The Washington Post reports: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates criticized President Trump’s decision to suspend funding to the World Health Organization as “dangerous,” saying the payments should continue particularly during the global coronavirus pandemic. “Halting funding for the World Health Organization during a world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds,” Gates tweeted early Wednesday. “Their work is slowing the …

The Hill reports: “We need to shut down so that the worst case that was happening in [Wuhan, China] or Northern Italy, that we avoid that,” Microsoft founder Bill Gates said in an interview on the TED Connects program, referring to regions hit particularly hard by the virus. Asked about suggestions being floated in the U.S. about relaxing social distancing …

The Seattle Times reports: Testing for the novel coronavirus in the Seattle area will get a huge boost in the coming weeks as a project funded by Bill Gates and his foundation begins offering home-testing kits that will allow people who fear they may be infected to swab their noses and send the samples back for analysis. Results, which should …

From a post on Bill Gates’ personal blog: I start with the understanding that the U.S. government simply does not bring in enough money to meet its obligations. This isn’t a value judgment; it’s just a fact. The government collects about 20 percent of GDP in taxes while spending about 24 percent. And the cost of commitments is going up. …

Bloomberg News reports: In 2019, the world’s richest 500 people saw their collective net worth jump by 25 percent or $1.2 trillion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index published Friday. Combined, the collective net worth of the world’s 500 wealthiest individuals totaled $5.9 trillion. American billionaires alone added $500 billion to their wealth, with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gaining $27.3 …

From a survey released today by YouGuv: Michelle Obama has supplanted Angelina Jolie as the world’s most admired woman, according to YouGov’s annual study of which public figures the people of our planet look up to. In fact, the American actress, filmmaker and humanitarian has fallen from first place last year to third place this year, with US talk show …

From Lucas Acosta at the Democratic National Committee: I’m sure you saw the news yesterday that in ​multiple​ meetings President Trump asked Bill Gates the difference between HIV/AIDS and HPV. Seriously. Maybe Trump should ask some of his friends for some advice before he starts asking Bill Gates? He could have easily started by asking members of the Presidential Advisory …

The Guardian reports: Bill Gates, the billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist, has claimed Donald Trump twice asked him the difference between HIV and HPV and knew a “scary” amount about Gates’s daughter’s looks. The remarks were recorded at a recent Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation meeting, where Gates took questions from staff, according to MSNBC’s All in with Chris Hayes show, …

STAT News reports: Bill Gates was talking to President Trump in the Oval Office last month when the conversation turned to the notion of a universal flu vaccine — probably, as Gates recalled in an interview, “the longest conversation about universal flu vaccine that the president’s ever had.” “You should associate yourself with American innovation. Wouldn’t you love to have …

The Associated Press reports: Bill Gates says he’s giving $50 million to help fight Alzheimer’s disease. The Microsoft co-founder said Monday that the donation to the Dementia Discovery Fund is personal and not through his charitable foundation. The London-based private fund is backed by government, charities and pharmaceutical firms and seeks new treatments for the progressive, irreversible neurological disease. Gates …

The Guardian reports:  The three richest people in the US – Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett – own as much wealth as the bottom half of the US population, or 160 million people. Analysis of the wealth of America’s richest people found that Gates, Bezos and Buffett were sitting on a combined $248.5bn (£190bn) fortune. The Institute for …

CNN Money reports: Amazon stock jumped 13.5% on Friday after the company turned in another incredible earnings report — more than a quarter-billion dollars in profit in three months. CEO Jeff Bezos owned nearly 80 million shares in Amazon as of August, according to the most recent available data from FactSet. He made more than $10 billion from the one-day …

Reuters reports: Makers of generic AIDS drugs will start churning out millions of pills for Africa containing a state-of-the-art medicine widely used in rich countries, after securing a multi-million dollar guarantee that caps prices at just $75 per patient a year. Global health experts hope the deal will help address two looming problems in the HIV epidemic – the rising …

The Guardian reports: Just a few dollars more on the Amazon share price and the world will have a new richest man. Jeff Bezos, the company’s founder, is on the brink of overtaking Bill Gates to become the wealthiest person on the planet. Bezos, 53, has been having a very good year. His net worth has risen by almost $20bn …

FAKE NEWS! The BBC reports: Microsoft founder Bill Gates again tops Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people, in a year when the number of billionaires rose 13% to 2,043. According to the magazine’s annual rich list, Mr Gates’ fortune rose to $86bn, from $75bn, followed by investor Warren Buffett, up $14.8bn to $75.6bn. It was bad news for US …

Yes, really. Quartz reports: Robots are taking human jobs. But Bill Gates believes that governments should tax companies’ use of them, as a way to at least temporarily slow the spread of automation and to fund other types of employment. It’s a striking position from the world’s richest man and a self-described techno-optimist who co-founded Microsoft, one of the leading …

GeekWire reports: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is committing up to $140 million to help Boston biotech company Intarcia Therapeutics develop an HIV prevention device. The funds will help Intarcia adapt its Medici technology program to deliver a steady stream of HIV medication to healthy patients over an extended period of time. The matchstick-sized device is similar to a …

CNBC reports: President-elect Donald Trump has an opportunity to establish “American leadership through innovation,” Bill Gates told CNBC on Tuesday. “A lot of his message has been about … where he sees things not as good as he’d like,” the billionaire Microsoft co-founder said on “Squawk Box.” “But in the same way President Kennedy talked about the space mission and …