When one of the richest men in the world sits down with arguably the most powerful man on the planet, it’s going to be an interesting discussion.
Well, Bill Gates has confirmed just that and even confessed to leaving the dinner table three hours later, impressed with how President Donald Trump held himself in the conversation.
The Microsoft co-founder was the wealthiest person in the world for almost every year between 1995 and 2017 – but now rather modestly he sits at 15th in Forbes’ list of the richest people on Earth.
Well, as modest as a billionaire can be anyway, but in 2022 he pledged to give away ‘virtually all’ of his wealth – and he’s been doing that through the Gates Foundation.
He and his ex wife vowed to give away their incredible wealth and so far the pair have donated well over $70 billion of their fortune… but where does Trump come into all this?
Well, the foundation has a ‘Global Health’ division which aims to ‘reduce inequities in health by developing new tools and strategies to reduce the burden of infectious disease and the leading causes of child mortality in developing countries’.
So, the main conversation Trump and Gates had was about how the US government could help the world health crisis.
He revealed that their talk ‘impressed’ him, and it seems like he’s a fan now.
“I felt like he [Trump] was energized and looking forward to helping to drive innovation. I was frankly impressed with how well he showed a lot of interest in the issues I brought up,” he told The Wall Street Journal.
“I had a chance to go have a long, and actually quite intriguing dinner with him.
“We touched on a lot of things. It was over three hours, to my surprise. It was just he and I, his Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and the person that helps manage things for me, Larry Cohen.”
Gates continued: “So the four of us sat there, and it was quite wide-ranging. Global health’s the area that I work in, and such amazing things have happened and can happen there.
“I spoke a lot about HIV and that the foundation’s literally working on a cure for that. We’re at an early stage, and so he, in the Covid days, accelerated the vaccine innovation.”
He went on to explain how he checked with the president whether he’d be able to progress the cure for HIV at the same speed, and how they both were ‘pretty excited’ about the possibility.
The conversation also moved onto polio and how the Gates Foundation is working to eradicate the disease.
