Bill Gates is the founder of Microsoft. He became a billionaire aged 31, making him the youngest billionaire in the world at the time. He established the Gates Foundation at the turn of the millennium, which became the world's largest philanthropic foundation. In May 2025 he announced the foundation would close by 2045, spending virtually all of his fortune—some $200bn more—on fighting disease and poverty.
Gates has accused Elon Musk of "killing the world's poorest children" over the foreign-aid cuts carried out by Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.
Gates's reputation has been tarnished by his association with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted paedophile financier. An analysis of 1.4m Epstein emails showed that Epstein bombarded Gates with messages despite receiving few responses; Gates was nonetheless happy to meet Epstein on a number of occasions.
Gates is a backer of Kobold Metals, a California-based mining company that uses AI and economic models to discover mineral deposits.
Good news. Ten weeks from Friday will be a pretty good day.