Bill Gates Admonishes Elon Musk Over Meddling in Foreign Politics: “This is Insane S***”
Ahead of the release of his new autobiography, Bill Gates admonished fellow tech billionaire CEO Elon Musk over the Tesla chief-turned-Trump adviser’s meddling in foreign politics, calling on foreign nations to introduce safeguards against “super-rich foreigners” attempting to distort elections.
Gates’ comments in a profile in the U.K.’s Times come after Musk threw $277 million into Trump and other GOP candidates’ campaigns in 2024, a gamble that has landed him a newly-created position in the Trump administration and the president’s ear. Since Trump’s win in November, Musk has been calling for the leader of the British far-right party Reform UK, Nigel Farage, to be replaced as he dangles a possible donation to the now third-largest U.K. party. And over the weekend, Musk made a surprise appearance during Germany’s AfD election event in the eastern city of Halle; voters in Germany return to the polls for federal elections in February.
Speaking with the Times, Gates bristled at the idea of Musk leveraging his fame and newfound political clout abroad and questioned why he should be allowed to stick his nose into such affairs — and how he’d find the time to even bother.
“It’s really insane that he can destabilize the political situations in countries,” Gates told the Times. “I think in the U.S., foreigners aren’t allowed to give money; other countries maybe should adopt safeguards to make sure super-rich foreigners aren’t distorting their elections. It’s difficult to understand why someone who has a car factory in both China and in Germany, whose rocket business is ultra-dependent on relationships with sovereign nations and who is busy cutting $2 trillion in U.S. government expenses and running five companies, is obsessing about this grooming story in the U.K. I’m like, what?”
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Gates’ comments on Musk reflect the surprise many have felt over the past few years, and particularly throughout 2024, as the registered independent and previously politically moderate tech innovator’s politics have gone from a rightward drift to a hard veering into Trumpism and the far-right. At Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, Musk slapped his right hand on his chest and shot his arm diagonally upward, in what was widely interpreted as a Nazi salute.
Gates, who once held Musk’s current position as the world’s wealthiest person, seems to find this hard-right turn flabbergasting.
“You want to promote the right wing but say Nigel Farage is not right-wing enough. … I mean, this is insane shit. You are for the AfD [in Germany],” he said, adding, “We can all overreach … If someone is super-smart, and he is, they should think how they can help out. But this is populist stirring.”
And the Silicon Valley legend wasn’t alone in speaking out against Musk recently. France’s César Academy said Monday that it had deleted its account on X, arguing that the public positions taken by Musk mean the platform “no longer corresponds” to the Academy’s stated values. Similarly, the Berlin Film Festival quit X earlier this year over Musk’s politics.
Gates has gone part-time at Microsoft after stepping down as chairman of the Microsoft board in 2014 and has been leaning further into philanthropy, giving away his fortune via his private charitable foundation. He established the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000 with his then-wife; the couple divorced in 2021 after his business dealings with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein went public. Melinda French Gates has become a mega-donor to the Democrats with a focus on abortion rights, and both donated millions to Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign last year.
After Harris’ loss, Gates went the way of many of his tech billionaire brethren and took a meeting at Mar-a-Lago with the incoming president; Trump was sure to say Gates asked for his time. Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Gates revealed the details of that visit in a forthcoming interview; Trump left him “impressed,” the outlet reported after the two discussed his foundation’s work toward curing HIV.
“I felt like he was energized and looking forward to helping to drive innovation,” said Gates in the interview clip released Friday. “You know, I was frankly impressed with how well he showed a lot of interest in the issues I brought up.”
Not that he will be backing Trump or his administration anytime soon. The insular nature of the right, he says, does not fit in with his philanthropic instincts.
“The whole political situation with polarization is very dangerous. Certainly, if you think through my lens of ‘Let’s help the poor countries,’ there is a lot going on,” he told the Times. “Our problem is an aging society, tight budgets and a right-wing inward turning, with hatred of all foreigners, and hence refusing aid to them even if they’re not in your own country. We’re in a challenging situation.”
Source Code: My Beginnings by Bill Gates, which looks at the tech billionaire’s early life up to the launch of Microsoft, is out on Feb. 4.
