A puff piece in the Times built around an interview with Bill Gates revealed that the Microsoft co-founder and lately vaccines, digital IDs, etc. “warrior” harbors negative feelings toward Elon Musk, but also social media as such.
It seems that governments and elites that feel the same way will always be able to count on Gates for support, including him hinting at what they should do about the “problem” of Musk, and social networking.
The implication from what Gates said during the interview is that they should act against, or censor Musk because of his political views, publicly expressed on X.
Not in so many words, but Gates here backs the UK government and the press that’s in its corner, who has been lambasting Musk as a “billionaire bully” who interferes in the country’s affairs – because he has opinions on issues such as the grooming gangs scandal.
The doting interviewer describes Gates as “responsible” and on a mission to “save lives” (as opposed to how the Times sees Musk) – and Gates agreed.
“I’m ultra-different. It’s really insane that he can destabilize the political situations in countries. I think in the US foreigners aren’t allowed to give money; other countries maybe should adopt safeguards to make sure super-rich foreigners aren’t distorting their elections,” he said.
That was “super-rich” coming from Gates, considering how much his foundation interferes in societies, particularly in developing countries, from agriculture and vaccination, to pushing the so-called Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI).
Gates then makes a dig at Musk’s many high profile businesses to share that he cannot understand why Musk would care about wide-scale child sexual exploitation. Why is he “obsessing about this grooming story in the UK. I’m like, what?,” said Gates, the supposed altruistic “life saver.”
He also slammed Musk for “promoting right wing” and “populist stirring” such as when he voices support for Germany’s opposition AfD party, that’s under heavy pressure from the establishment in that country but also from the EU.
Regarding social media, Gates describes it as a “problem” and then “thinks of the children” but also about “misinformation” to justify that stance – although his wording is different as he accuses the platforms of allowing “crazy non-factual things to achieve critical mass.”
Once again, Gates would like to see government action against the things he dislikes, and is “disappointed” that allegedly neither the government nor tech companies are/have not been doing anything about “fixing or improving” the situation.
He’s “thinking of the children” once again here (just not so much about those who were the victims of UK’s grooming gangs and the censorship around it).
“This approach isn’t going to be very good. Take vaccine misinformation: that could get dangerous. Children can die of measles,” said Gates.
