Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has sharply criticized Elon Musk following the controversial shutdown of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), claiming the move is endangering the lives of vulnerable children around the globe.
Gates, who recently announced that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation plans to wind down operations by 2045, told the Financial Times that Musk’s actions have had dire humanitarian consequences. According to Gates, the closure of USAID has disrupted the delivery of critical food and medical aid, leading to wasted supplies and threatening to reverse progress on diseases like polio, HIV, and measles.
The decision to dismantle the agency came earlier this year when Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) finalized the shutdown. Musk, currently the world’s wealthiest individual, posted on X (formerly Twitter), calling USAID a “criminal organization” and stating, “Time for it to die.”
Gates didn’t hold back in his comments, accusing Musk of effectively sending USAID “through a wood chipper”—a pointed allusion to Musk’s own language used on social media when celebrating the agency’s dismantling.
In a recent Times Magazine interview, Gates emphasized the severity of the situation, arguing that cutting off funding without planning for humanitarian fallout has jeopardized millions of lives in low-income countries.
On Thursday, May 8, Bill Gates revealed his intention to donate nearly his entire personal wealth over the next twenty years. He announced that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is set to distribute approximately $200 billion to support impoverished communities around the world.
Gates also stated that the foundation, which he co-founded in 2000 with his former spouse Melinda French Gates, will officially wind down operations by December 31, 2045. By that time, he aims to have given away roughly 99% of his fortune. “When I’m gone, people may say many things about me, but I’m committed to making sure ‘he died rich’ isn’t one of them,” Gates shared on his website.
Since its inception, the foundation has already contributed $100 billion to global causes, backing transformative initiatives like Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.