Summary
Bill Gates met with Trump and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to advocate for continuing USAID’s foreign aid programs.
The Trump administration has frozen them amid scrutiny from Elon Musk.
Gates praised USAID as the world’s best development agency and warned its dismantling would be difficult to reverse.
While Trump and Wiles’ response was unclear, Gates noted he had not spoken with Musk, who has called USAID a “criminal organization” and pushed for deep federal workforce cuts.
My hate goes back to the 90s. I don’t know, maybe he actually feels bad about what he was back then and that’s the reason for the philanthropy, but he’s still got that stigma for me. I still see “embrace, extend, extinguish” written across his face. He’s the reason the web stagnated for years when we were all stuck using IE. He’s the reason why Linux isn’t offered as an OEM OS. And many more.
There is no such thing as billionaire philantropy - if you examine it closely, it’s just another scam to avoid paying taxes. Bill Gates is as much a philantropist as I am a billionaire.
Well, thats not true. There is such a thing as philanthropic donations. USAID makes money off poor people with loans. Thats not philanthropic.
Most of these assholes do it for greed reasons, but there is a small slice of rich people who actually do contribute just to help important causes.
Dont throw the baby out with the bath water
Of course there are donations, but that is not the point of the phrase.
There are no philanthropic billionaires, because they would have started giving away their wealth before even getting close to a billion.
All these people do is buying a little peace of mind.