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Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates pushed back against Elon Musk amid the world’s richest man’s aggressive and likely unconstitutional upheaval of the federal government, saying the DOGE chief was off base to describe the US Agency for International Development as a “ball of worms” that needs to be “shut down.”
Gates, who is currently promoting his new book Source Code, has spent much of his media tour in recent days expressing concern about Musk’s government power grab. During an interview with the Times of London, Gates denounced the Tesla CEO’s political activities – which included endorsing a far-right German political party – as “insane s***” and “populist stirring.” At the same time, Gates also recently told The Independent that while Musk has been “mean” to him and he was “surprised” by his support of Donald Trump, he still looked forward to working with the “brilliant” mega-billionaire.
During his first-ever appearance on The View, Gates reiterated that his recent three-hour sitdown with Trump at Mar-a-Lago was about convincing the president to continue to fund research into preventing the spread of HIV and polio across the globe, something his Gates Foundation had been primarily focused on. “I felt we had a very good conversation,” the tech pioneer told the daytime talk show hosts.
“You also called Elon Musk’s political influence abroad insane, along with another word we can’t repeat here, but what’s your take on his political access and influence here in America right now?” The View host Sara Haines wondered.
While he was very complimentary of Musk’s “private sector work,” calling it “very innovative” and “fantastic,” Gates was far less enthused about the X (formerly Twitter) owner and his band of young techies taking over data and financial systems while blocking “lifesaving” foreign aid and pushing out dozens of USAID employees and officials.
“A lot of private sector people, when they get into government, they don’t take the time necessarily to see what the good work is or why it’s structured the way it is,” he said. “So I’m a little worried, particularly with this USAID stuff.”
Gates would then go on to defend USAID staffers by quoting Musk, who has described the department — the government’s top agency for humanitarian aid and assistance across the globe — as a “criminal” organization that needs to be fed “into the wood chipper” because it is full of “worms.”
“My foundation partners with USAID on nutrition and getting vaccines out and, you know, there’s incredible people [there],” he declared. “You know, they’re not actually worms that work there.”
Gates, who would also express cautious optimism about vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s likely confirmation as HHS secretary, said he was hopeful that Musk and the Trump administration would realize how important USAID is to global health.
“So, you know, hopefully we’ll get some of that work back in shape,” he stated. “In fact, if we don’t, you could have literally millions of deaths.”
Gates continued: “And people think, ‘Wow, how much do we give these countries?’ As you said, it’s less than a percent [of spending]. People think it’s five percent and it should be two percent. But it’s actually under one percent.”
