Bill Gates: Microsoft founder to give most of $200bn fortune to Africa

Microsoft founder Bill Gates says that most of his $200bn (£150bn) fortune will be spent on improving health and education services in Africa over the next 20 years.

The 69-year-old said that "by unleashing human potential through health and education, every country in Africa should be on a path to prosperity".

Speaking in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, he also urged Africa's young innovators to think about how to build Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve healthcare on the continent.

Gates announced last month that he would give away 99% of his vast fortune by 2045, by when his foundation planned to end its operations.

So no, he's not giving it away in traditional sense. It's still directed spending according to what he believes is correct. Over 20 years. So same old but with AI.

It’s in a trust. That’s now how wills and stuff work. The whole point of paying attorneys and shit is for this kind of stuff. They are getting paid handsomely to make sure it happens. No reason to get disbarred for money that will be seized if you’re caught.
Has anyone else spent that kinda money effectively ? If I was billionaire looking to donate my wealth I’d probably donate it to Gates fund.
- Not $200B no. Here's the list of total dollars, but no data on effectiveness. Notice Bill is already on this list while alive in the #2 spot:
  source
- China has, with different strings attached.
  As for individuals or NGOs, I don't know. That said, as GiveDirectly have shown, it's not complicated to spend effectively if you don't want to exercise significant control. All you have to do is give the money directly to poor people. That's about it. They will circulate it and recirculate it in the local economy, multiplying the effects.
  Or you could get China to build the equivalent of a fifth of the B&R infrastructure on your dime without the strings attached. Trains, roads, ports, power generation, etc.
  Or if you wanted to help curb the ability of someone else accumulating as much as you did, establish funds for worker co-op startup firms, unions and socialist politicians' campaigns.
So. No way he's living to 2045. After he dies I bet someone just changes everything. This won't happen. Even in the hamstring version he has written up at the moment.

His PR company doing the rehab work on his public image is top notch, but they need some new material. This one is such a rerun.

Just hear me out what if he gives it to me.

Last I've checked Gates donated $60B to his foundation and now the foundation controls $90B. They got so many other donations Gates now controls more money then before.

Yeah, real sacrifice Bill...

You make it sound like this is a money making scheme but he's still out about $170 billion compared to other billionaires who pat themselves on the back for a $10k donation here and there or try to use their money to destroy democracy so they can be even more obscenely rich and powerful. $200 billion will go a long way in a developing continent.
- Which still has no material impact on his well being and keeps most people distracted from his behaviours from all kinds of inappropriate conduct at Microsoft to his efforts to rehabilitate Epstein after his first conviction, with a bunch of economic crimes and things that should be economic crimes in the middle.
- You make it sound like he actually lost some money. It's all just for show. It's not like he wanted to buy something but decided to donate money instead. He can still afford absolutely everything he could even want. He's not poorer in any meaningful way. The money his foundation has gives him power. Power to influence governments and policy (like he did with common core). His foundation has now more money than he donated so he has more power than before. It's a PR stunt.

Anything to not help poor people in your own country, right Bill? His state has so many poor and homeless folks and he just doesn’t care.

Not that Africa doesn’t - he’s got enough money that he could do both, though.

And forcing the African nations into vaccine colonization, aka making them buy only USA backed one that he advocated to be patented asap

surely lemmy will praise this right? or are we blinded by hate?

What could it possibly matter to you, personally, if people praise a billionaire?
No. Absolutely not, every time, no. You don't get to be a billionaire by any legitimate means (note I did not say legal, this is a separate matter). That's money that should've been collected into taxes, paid into systems to help the American people, and if properly supported, donated to Africa through the appropriate institutions.
You don't just get to be a billionaire and then donate BILLIONS at the end of your life to wash away your indiscretions. Fuck him and every other billionaire.
- It matters because we are no longer alone. We are not some small collective of 50 people in a rural town with no access to the outside world. We must act as one. Pretending like one person can go off and do whatever they want and it won't effect the whole is how we get people like Trump. We must all act for the greater benefit of humanity, and if you aren't praising efforts that help achieve that goal, I have to wonder why.
  You aren't wrong, but it doesn't matter now, does it? Work on tax codes if that is your passion, but maligning the mistakes of previous generations and hindering current efforts doesn't help anyone. The money is gone. It isn't coming back. It may as well go to a good cause while we try to find a way to make sure it doesn't continue to happen.
  Hating someone because they are a billionaire is the same as loving one for being a billionaire. It doesn't matter how much money a person has or doesn't have. What matters is their actions. I'll be the first to put an oligarch against the wall, but I don't need it to be a billionaire. I just need them to be harming the world. I will concede that there are very few (read: nearly none) with that much money that do anything proper with it. Its pretty much all bad. But, in this case, we have on that is giving a portion away that can truly make a beneficial difference, and we should praise efforts like that so that they might continue. What's the next billionaire gonna do when they try to give their money away and see that "All Gates got was vitriol and death wishes." We don't have to praise the billionaire directly, but I think we should agree that the money finally leaving the 1% to help the remaining 99% is a good step.
It doesn't matter how much good he does, some people will never forgive Windows 8.
- I liked Windows 8 :(
- I thought Ballmer was CEO at that time?
- With classic shell, Win 8.1 was surprisingly good. Definitely underrated.
Just because he's less of an asshole than Musk or Bezos doesn't mean billionaires should exist.
You don't get $200bn by paying appropriate taxes or wages. Donating most of his money is a good deed and it's going to help a lot of people, but you just don't get that much money without stepping on a lot of people too.
I'm not going to shit on him for doing something good with the money but I'm not going to praise him for having that much money in the first place either.
No. This is cool. He's still divorced because of Epstein though. He also had enough money stop the fascists. Bill will have a very gray spot in history.
- But he isn't using his money to stop fascism, he part of the problem. He's just dumping his money ill gotten gained from the US to a countries where you can't recoup the losses and still leave a favorable legacy behindm
Bill Gates has the best public relations machine money can buy.
The Nation: Why Bill Gates’s Philanthropy Is a Problem
Jacobin: Bill Gates’s Philanthropic Giving Is a Racket
Adam Ruins Everything: Why Billionaire Philanthropy is Not So Selfless
Citations Needed podcast:
Episode 45: The Not-So-Benevolent Billionaire: Bill Gates and Western Media
Episode 46: The Not-So-Benevolent Billionaire, Part II - Bill Gates in Africa
News Brief: Big Pharma, Bill Gates Spin Against Generic Vaccines for Global South as Biden a No Show
News Brief: #VaxLive is a PR Scam So Those Causing Vaccine Inequity Can Pose as Saviors of Global Poor
Episode 146: Bill Gates, Bono and the Limits of World Bank and IMF-Approved Celebrity 'Activism'
- Stopped reading after the first one used his listed illiquid wealth (which probably includes a notable chunk of Microsoft stock that he can’t just dump on market).