Liberal billionaire acknowledges announcement is ‘not very timely’ as Trump cracks down on wasteful foreign aid
Liberal billionaire Bill Gates announced Thursday that he will permanently shutter the Gates Foundation, which has given money to organizations and agencies run by the Chinese Communist Party, on Dec. 31, 2045—decades earlier than planned—as the Trump administration cracks down on wasteful U.S. foreign aid.
Gates expects his foundation to “spend more than $200 billion between now and 2045,” he wrote at his website, though he acknowledged during an interview with the New York Times that his announcement is “not very timely” because of President Donald Trump’s crackdown.
“The actual money going into these causes is reduced, and reduced way beyond what I would have expected,” Gates told the Times, particularly blasting Trump adviser Elon Musk for having “cut the U.S.A.I.D. budget,” referring to the agency that disburses foreign aid.
The Gates Foundation, which marks its 25th anniversary on Thursday, has a long history of funding and partnering with controversial foreign entities, including those with run by the Chinese Communist Party.
In 2023, the foundation launched a $50 million research partnership with Tsinghua University, which holds “secret-level security credentials” for China’s classified military research, trains students for Beijing’s nuclear weapons program, and has allegedly conducted cyberattacks on behalf of the Chinese government. Two years earlier, the foundation also funneled millions to China’s National Health Commission and Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
Gates’s announcement comes as Trump ramps up efforts to eliminate waste and abuse within the federal government, particularly at USAID. The agency’s disbursements included $1.5 million to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in Serbia, $70,000 for a DEI-themed musical in Ireland, $47,000 for a transgender-themed opera in Colombia, and $32,000 for a transgender-themed comic book in Peru, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
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