Bill Gates: Elon Musk’s cuts will kill a million children

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1. The planet’s formerly wealthiest person is not happy with the current one.

   Bill Gates said: “The image of the world’s richest man taking steps that over time will kill over a million children? It is a pretty stark one.”

   Elon Musk, who has overseen massive cuts to the US overseas aid budget, “has not been out to see kids dying”, Gates added. In his work with his foundation, Gates is, conversely, rather familiar with children dying. Thanks in part to Musk, he thinks there will soon be more of them.

   Each year, with all the diligence of a business, the Gates Foundation runs the numbers for its key performance indicators. Five million children die every year in the developing world before their fifth birthday. Four years from now, with all being normal, [Gates](https://www.thetimes.com/topic/bill-gates) would have expected to reduce that figure to four million. Today, with all not being normal, he thinks six million is more likely, adding: “We will go backwards.”

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3. > Most notably, there was the confusion caused by there being a Gaza in Mozambique. “US money was being used to prevent mothers giving their babies HIV,” he added. Because of the salience of the other Gaza, Doge “mischaracterised that money as buying condoms for Hamas.”.
   > At least temporarily, the money was cut. Getting your Gazas wrong, said Gates, “is not a good excuse for killing people”.

   Clown show

   Honestly, I don’t know if some of these entities even care if a million children die

   In the past you could convince them that those million children might grow up to be customers who buy U.S. products & end up as useful cogs in the machine, but even the free trade angle to spur up some morality seems to be out of vogue these days

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5. Isn’t there some well-funded private charity that could pick up the slack?

6. While not a big fan of billionaires in general, I have some respect for those like Gates & Buffet who give billions to charities and have agreed to give up over 90% of the wealth upon death. They even tried to convince other billionaires to give up 50% of their fortune to charity upon death as your heirs will already have enough for multiple lifetimes.

   Never understood why they don’t all do this, if you’re worth over a hundred billion and give 1/10 that to charity it’s not going to affect your lifestyle in any way, and the PR could be worth infinitely more.

7. And remember Kids, when somebody says something to do with children, it’s politics nothing more.

8. It is funny that Gates probably coordinated and paid lots of money to have these puff pieces put out there and then spread on social media only for them to announce a new pope on the same day.

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