this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2024
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Bill Gates' net worth has grown substantially despite his philanthropy, rising from $126.8 billion in early 2023 to $156 billion in December 2024.
Regarding COVID-19 vaccines, Gates actively opposed patent waivers and influenced Oxford University to privatize its vaccine through AstraZeneca rather than keep it open-source. He pushed for maintaining intellectual property rights through COVAX, despite public funding supporting vaccine development.
Not a good guy by any metric.
Thats a good criticism but the CEO he put in charge of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation went against him and supported waiving the patents anyways, which Biden and the WTO went ahead and did regardless.
His argument against the TRIPS terms was that it wouldn't actually increase production, that every facility capable of producing vaccines was doing so regardless of the patent's costs especially given that they only had to worry about intellectual properties when importing to countries where the patent is held.
He was wrong, I give you that, I think there is no room to be penny pinching and arguing when even 1 more vaccine could have saved lives. However, that doesn't even come close to offsetting the number of lives he has saved or improved by handing out vaccines and medicines for free across Africa. The vast majority of Gates' opponents are generally not fond of Dark Skinned people.