Bill Gates
KEY THREATS:
AI Data Center Explosion Education privatization Military industrial complex Deportation Industrial Complex Bill Gates may no longer be the world’s richest man, but his latest ventures are no throwback. Despite stepping down as CEO and director of Microsoft, Barron’s reported in May 2026 that Gates still owns a $43 billion stake in the company, which has become one of the world’s biggest boosters of AI. Microsoft is planning to spend at least $190 billion this year on what may be the most hated infrastructure in the country: building data centers.
After spending 1999-2001 coming off like, what the New York Times said one observer described as “a modern-day robber baron” in the landmark anti-monopoly case against Microsoft, Gates spent the 21st century remaking his image by leading the Gates Foundation, one of the most powerful philanthropic foundations in the world. But behind the charity branding, Gates’ actions are similar to his fellow would-be tech overlords: dining with and praising Donald Trump, Epstein ties that, according to Gates’ ex-wife contributed to the end of his 27-year marriage, and grandiose claims that doctors, teachers and other professionals will mostly be replaced with AI within a decade. Plus, Microsoft donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.
And as critics attest, even his charity work is more oligarchic than it first appears, with the foundation’s $8 billion in 2024 revenues giving it undemocratic power and influence over vast swaths of public policy, including healthcare, education, and agriculture. Critics have accused the Gates Foundation of “vaccine colonialism” and privatizing and weakening public education, leading to harmful results for students and teachers.
NET WORTH
Co-Founder
Microsoft
OTHER COMPANIES
Gates Foundation (Chair), Gates Ventures, Breakthrough Energy
LINKED TO
Jeffrey Epstein, Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos, Marc Andreessen, Reid Hoffman, Mark Zuckerberg, Donald Trump
AGE
70
STATE
Washington
PART OF
Linked To
Jeffrey Epstein
Gates met with Epstein after Epstein’s 2008 conviction, after which the latter emailed his associates, saying, “Bill’s great.” Gates emailed his own colleagues about the meeting, writing that "A very attractive Swedish woman and her daughter dropped by and I ended up staying there quite late." Bill Gates’ ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, told CBS Mornings that Epstein was “evil personified” and that meeting him gave her nightmares, and cited it as a factor in their divorce.
Sam Altman
Microsoft has been a top investor in OpenAI since 2019, and owns as much as 27% of the company.
Jeff Bezos
Backer of Gates’ company Breakthrough Energy Ventures. Gates attended Bezo’s 2025 wedding to Lauren Sánchez.
Marc Andreessen
Backer of Gates’ company Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
Reid Hoffman
Backer of Gates’ company Breakthrough Energy Ventures and was a member of the Microsoft Board of Directors. Jeffrey Epstein also, according to the New York Times, “forged a friendship” with Hoffman who reportedly spent a weekend on Epstein's island in 2014, then planned to stay at Epstein’s apartment in New York and attend a breakfast party with Gates.
Mark Zuckerberg
Backer of Gates’ company Breakthrough Energy Ventures. Zuckerberg has described Gates as his childhood “hero.” He has also told Recode he was inspired by Gates’ “second act” as a philanthropist.
Donald Trump
After Gates reportedly donated $50 million to a PAC backing Kamala Harris during the 2024 election, Microsoft donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. In January 2025, Gates had dinner with Trump and told The Wall Street Journal he was “impressed” by him.
Controversies
- Microsoft was sued by the U.S. government, 19 states, and the District of Columbia in the 1998 antitrust case, United States v. Microsoft Corp, in which the Department of Justice accused the company of illegally maintaining a monopoly using anticompetitive tactics, such as bundling Internet Explorer with Windows to overtake competing browsers and using exclusive deals to limit technologies like Java.
- Became a top backer of education privatization and the charter school movement under the guise of “education reform,” including the “failed” Common Core curriculum experiment. Journalist Cory Doctorow has accused Gates of using teachers and students as “human guinea pigs” in an expensive game that failed to improve schools.
- According to 972+ Magazine, there are “deep ties between the Israeli army and Microsoft.” Its 2025 investigation found that “Microsoft has a ‘footprint in all major military infrastructures’ in Israel, and sales of the company’s cloud and artificial intelligence services to the Israeli army have skyrocketed since the beginning of its onslaught on Gaza.” Documents revealed that dozens of units in the Israeli army purchased services from Microsoft Azure in the months after October 7th. Activists including current and former Microsoft employees have called on Microsoft to end their relationship with the Israeli military.
- According to critics, Microsoft 365 tracks email patterns, meeting habits, collaboration networks, and productivity data that enables employers to engage in workplace surveillance of employees.
- In a 2025 interview with Jimmy Kimmel, Gates said he thinks AI will replace teachers, doctors, and more within ten years. When Kimmel said, “But will we still need humans?” Gates replied, “Not for most things.”
Obscene Spending
- Owns a $130 million mega mansion nicknamed Xanadu 2.0. It has 24 bathrooms and six kitchens, with sand imported from the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia.
- Purchased a Leonardo da Vinci manuscript, which he keeps in his library, for $30.8 million in 1994.
- Chartered a 439-foot superyacht for a family vacation, which cost $5 million a week and included a helicopter.
- Reportedly owned a $25 million private island in Belize.
Enabling
Deportation Industrial Complex
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses Microsoft tech to facilitate its deportation operations. A 972+ Magazine investigation found that ICE stores large amounts of data on Microsoft Azure cloud, and uses Microsoft AI tools to analyze videos and images. ICE’s reliance on Microsoft’s technology “surged” according to Politico amidst Trump’s recent immigration crackdown. In the six months leading up to January 2026, ICE more than tripled the amount of data it stored in Microsoft Azure.
Bill Gates’ family office is also invested in a company that provided services to deportation flights. According to news reports Signature Aviation provided services that support ICE flights. According to The Dallas News, Signature operated ICE flights out of Dallas Love Field. In March of 2026, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey called on Signature to stop supporting ICE flights out of Hanscom Field airport. According to Pitchbook, as of October 2021, Gates’ family investment office, Cascade Investment, was one of four private equity investors in Signature Aviation.
AI Data Center Expansion
The Gates Foundation was part of a coalition that announced in 2025 that it would invest $1 billion over 15 years in AI products intended to infiltrate public services including parole officers, social workers, and public defenders. Bill Gates’ Gates Frontier invested in next-gen microchip development. In addition to Microsoft’s own commitment to invest $190 billion in building data centers, the company was an early investor in OpenAI, which it has owned as much as 27% of.
Data centers are wildly unpopular, with 7 in 10 Americans saying they oppose data center construction where they live. Across the country, communities are fighting back against data centers, calling attention to their role in skyrocketing utility bills, massive consumption of water, and reliance on fossil fuels.