Bill Gates recently criticized Elon Musk for his actions while leading Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), but Musk had a straightforward five-word reply on Twitter.
After Donald Trump began his second term as US president, he appointed Elon Musk as the leader of DOGE.
In his 90 days in the position, Musk focused on reducing the federal workforce to cut costs. This resulted in an ultimatum email to employees, only for the government to later rehire 180 people.
Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft and a philanthropist, criticized Musk for allegedly ‘killing the world’s poorest children’ by downsizing numerous agencies and departments, including the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Musk had previously labeled USAID a ‘criminal organization’ and said it was ‘time for it to die.’
Before these changes, USAID employed around 10,000 people and was the largest single donor of humanitarian aid globally, allocating $40 million in the 2023 fiscal year.
Musk remarked: “It became apparent that it’s not an apple with a worm it in. What we have is just a ball of worms. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing.”
Gates described this as ‘the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children,’ highlighting to the Financial Times that the situation ‘is not a pretty one’.
Elon Musk, also known as Gorklon Rust, responded to Gates on Twitter on May 8.
In a post addressing a clip of Gates on CBS Morning, Musk wrote: “Gates is a huge liar.”
Gates elaborated on his criticisms in a detailed interview.
He explained how the cuts made by DOGE led to the expiration of life-saving medicines and food supplies in warehouses.
Gates warned that this could result in increased cases of diseases like measles, HIV, and polio due to the lack of access to necessary medicines.
Additionally, Gates accused Musk of stopping grants for a hospital in Gaza that works to prevent HIV transmission from mothers to newborns, under the false pretext that the US was distributing condoms to Hamas.
He expressed: “I’d love for him to go in and meet the children that have now been infected with HIV because he cut that money.”