Bill Gates reveals what he discussed with Donald Trump during 3-hour dinner before inauguration
Bill Gates has revealed what he actually discussed with President Donald Trump during a three-hour long dinner they shared before the inauguration on January 20.
The Microsoft co-founder controversially sat down with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida on Boxing Day.
It was just weeks before Trump would be inaugurated as the 47th US president.
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While Gates wasn’t in attendance for the event, many other moguls in the tech industry were, including Trump’s ‘first buddy’ Tesla boss Elon Musk, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, and Sundar Pichai, who is the CEO of Google.
But despite his absence, Gates has spoken highly of Trump since their dinner at the end of 2024.
The billionaire appeared for an interview on The View where he shed some light on what was discussed during the three hour long meal.
Gates said: “My priorities in talking to President Trump were the global health issues, particularly HIV and polio.
“The voters have a lot to be proud of, you know, we’ve saved tens of millions of lives. The number of children who died at the turn of of the century is over 10 million a year, now down below five million and things like HIV medicines are responsible for that and vaccines, so I would encourage him to drive more innovation in those spaces.
“We’re still missing some vaccines and I felt we had a very good conversation.”
One of the hosts of the show, Sara Haines, then asked Gates about his comments on Musk, saying: “You also called Elon Musk’s political influence abroad ‘insane’, along with another word we can’t repeat here but what’s your take on his political access and influence here in America right now?”
In response, Gates said: “His private sector work has been very innovative, really fantastic.
“A lot of private sector people, when they get into government, they don’t take the time necessarily to see what the good work is or why it’s structured the way it is, so I’m a little worried, particularly with this USAID stuff.
“My foundation partners with USAID on nutrition and getting vaccines out and there’s incredible people, they’re not actually worms that work there, so hopefully we’ll get some of that work back in shape.”
What is Elon Musk’s new role in the Trump administration?
Musk was in the center of controversy this week after he was granted full access to the Treasury’s federal payment system by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, according to reports by The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
This is because President Trump has appointed Musk as the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
While DOGE isn’t actually a governmental department, it has been said that it will act as an outside advisor on federal spending, with Musk claiming that he will make trillions of dollars worth of cuts.
According to The New York Times, David Lebryk, a top civil servant in the Treasury Department, was removed from his position after refusing to give DOGE access.
It is not yet known what Musk might do with this new power, as fears grow that he could have access to confidential information including social security numbers and Medicare benefit payments.
The billionaire has already been making claims about the department on his own social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
The Tesla boss wrote: “The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups.
“They literally never denied a payment in their entire career.
“Not even once.”
Lindsay Owens, who is the executive director of economic think tank Groundwork Collaborative, shared her thoughts on the possible routes Musk could go down.
In an op-ed for MSNBC, she said: “Musk could also get his hands on the ‘Do Not Pay’ system that lists individuals or contractors the government has blacklisted, theoretically granting him control over whom the government does business with.
“Government contracts have been central to Musk’s $400 billion net worth; his companies have signed billions of dollars’ worth of government contracts.
“He could easily place his rivals on the Do Not Pay list or turn the spigot back on for friends who have been blacklisted.”