Commentary

Bill Gates Says Elon Musk's Twitter 'Stirring' Up Opposing Digital Opinions

Bill Gates voiced his opinion on the recent string of changes Elon Musk made to his newly acquired social network.

"I think, certainly, the Twitter situation is stirring things up,” Gated said in an interview with the Financial Times (FT) that published Tuesday. “That, instead of an objective set of measures done by a broad group of people, you’re sort of seeing seat-of-the-pants type activity.”

He added that social media should “focus on the things that incite riots or lead to huge misconceptions about the safety of vaccines or masks, or those types of things."

Musk tweeted that Twitter will abide by votes for major policy changes on the social-media platform

On Monday he launched a Twitter poll asking users whether he should resign as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). He pledged to abide by the results of the vote.

In my opinion, it’s silly for anyone to think Musk would remain as CEO of the company. As Gates put it, he just wanted to stir things up.

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The poll closed Monday with more than 17.5 million users sharing their opinion. Around 57.5% of users voted in favor of Musk's resignation, with just 42.5% voting against it.

Gates -- who turned 67 in October and whose donations to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have taken his net worth below that of Musk -- wrote in his annual letter to the world, released Tuesday: “although I don’t care where I rank on the list of the world’s richest people, I do know that as I succeed in giving, I will drop down and eventually off the list altogether.”

Next year, Gates will become a grandfather, giving him even more reason to use his wealth to change the world for the better.

“When I think about the world my grandchild will be born into, I’m more inspired than ever to help everyone’s children and grandchildren have a chance to survive and thrive,” he wrote.

Global health is a major focus for the foundation. More than two decades ago, Gates and former wife Melinda Gates learned how little money and effort was put into saving the lives of children in poor countries. Both thought the world should do more, and it has. Since 2000, he writes, when the foundation began, the childhood death rate has been cut by half.

However, climate change, inflation, Russia’s war in Ukraine, polarized U.S. politics, and more are reversing the progress of global health advancements.

There are been some exceptional donors throughout the years, such as Warren Buffet. Since 2006, Buffet’s gifts to the foundation have totaled about $45 billion.

Gates also wrote about one significant change this year to expand the board of trustees for his foundation. It now has eight members, including Melinda Gates, foundation CEO Mark Suzman, and Bill Gates, as well as five experienced women and men who are not otherwise connected to the foundation.

“Eventually the foundation will spend all its money and shut its doors,” Gates wrote. “When it does, its most important contribution will not be the billions of dollars given away; it will be the teams of experts who developed strategies, partnerships, and innovations to reduce inequity.”

Gates, who with Paul Allen founded Microsoft as a software company, also recently founded a company called TerraPower, which is not mentioned in the annual letter. TerraPower this past year announced it would build a sodium-cooled nuclear reactor in Kemmerer, Wyoming, in an old coal-fired power plant that closed.

Kemmerer is the seat for Lincoln County, which borders Teton County, where folks find Jackson -- but like many other Wyoming towns, it has few residents.

TerraPower says its 345-megawatt plant will be able to power about 345,000 homes. There’s about 1,500 homes in Kemmerer.

About 180 people live in my Wyoming town. Nearly 11,000 people live in the ski resort town of Jackson, Wyoming, according to 2021 numbers. Jackson is in Teton county with a Wyoming population, about 578,803 as of 2021.

To read more about Gates' philanthropic work in healthcare, climate change, and technology such as AI-powered ultrasounds, you can refer to his website and his annual letter here.

 

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