By Joe Saunders October 23, 2024 at 8:07am
Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates has spent decades under the public spotlight, but when it comes to his political spending in the 2024 election, he’s tried to keep Americans in the dark.
That changed Tuesday when The New York Times reported that Gates has said he has donated $50 million to a group supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign for the presidency.
It was “meant to stay under wraps,” the Times reported.
Gates has not publicly endorsed Harris, the Times noted, and the donation is unprecedented for Gates, whose philanthropic giving has largely steered clear of politics outright. (His obsession with “climate change,” however, tends to show where his sympathies are.)
In personal conversations, Gates has “expressed concerns” about former President Donald Trump winning a second term, the Times reported.
And in a statement to the Times for the story about his donation, he declared that “this election is different.”
“I have a long history of working with leaders across the political spectrum, but this election is different, with unprecedented significance for Americans and the most vulnerable people around the world,” the statement said.
And that translates to a $50 million donation to Future Forward, which the Times described as “fund-raising group supporting Ms. Harris.”
Gates has also talked up his donation to fellow members of the mega-wealthy class, like billionaire Mike Bloomberg, who is already a supporter of Future Forward and is considering a donation similar to Gates’, according to the Times.
Is Bill Gates hurting America?
Americans — especially in swing states — could already be seeing the effects of Gates’ donation without knowing it.
“Future Forward has been the tip of the spear of the advertising barrage against Mr. Trump this fall,” the Times reported.
“Mr. Gates’s donation could, even late in the election, help finance anti-Trump ads. The nonprofit arm faces some restrictions on the amount of money it can spend on explicitly anti-Trump messaging, but it has donated over $170 million to the Future Forward super PAC, which faces no such restrictions.”
The news of Gates’ spending comes as uber-billionaire Elon Musk has become a major backer of former President Donald Trump’s campaign (to the fury of Democrats and other Trump opponents.)
Musk, however, has made no secret of his political positions.
The Times report set off a storm of reaction on social media, with some accusing the Democrats and Gates of hypocrisy:
Tim Walz today attacked @elonmusk for donating millions to help President Trump get elected.
Now we learn, Bill Gates donated $50 million to Kamala Harris’ campaign.
You won’t hear anything from Walz about that. pic.twitter.com/LSTrWnPnVy
— Paul A. Szypula (@Bubblebathgirl) October 23, 2024
After Kamala Harris announced her candidacy, Bill Gates said he wouldn’t endorse her because of the non-partisan nature of his foundation. Meanwhile he quietly donated $50 million to help her campaign and didn’t want anyone to find out according to the NYT. pic.twitter.com/ehyHB91xsk
— Expose Them (@ExposeDarkDeeds) October 22, 2024
The news comes only weeks after Musk told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a lengthy interview that he thinks billionaires like Gates — and Linkedin co-founder Reid Hoffman (who was a Nikki Haley donor during the GOP primary) — are afraid a Trump victory could reveal more about their ties to the notorious deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Bill Gates has put up $50 MILLION backing Kamala Harris, according to NYT
This comes just days after Elon told Tucker Carlson that some billionaires are “TERRIFIED” by Trump’s promise to release the Epstein client list
Who thinks Bill Gates is afraid of the Epstein client list? pic.twitter.com/DqNuGB5hB4
— JOSH DUNLAP (@JDunlap1974) October 23, 2024
With that kind of baggage, it might be understandable why Gates wanted to keep his donation secret.
But it also raises more questions he’d probably rather Americans weren’t asking.
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro desk editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He’s been with Liftable Media since 2015.
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He’s been with Liftable Media since 2015. Largely a product of Catholic schools, who discovered Ayn Rand in college, Joe is a lifelong newspaperman who learned enough about the trade to be skeptical of every word ever written. He was also lucky enough to have a job that didn’t need a printing press to do it.
Birthplace
Philadelphia
Nationality
American
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