Bill Gates is spilling the beans on his recent meeting with President-elect Donald Trump.
The Microsoft founder shared in a clip of his upcoming interview with The Wall Street Journal that he visited Trump for a three-hour conversation earlier this month, and despite previously suggesting Trump wasn’t that bright, said the discussion left him “impressed.”
“I spoke a lot about HIV and that the foundation’s literally working on a cure for that,” Gates told the Journal. “We’re at an early stage. And he in the COVID days accelerated the vaccine innovation. So I was asking him if maybe the same kind of thing could be done here.”
“And we both got, I think, pretty excited about that,” he continued.
Gates, whose eponymous foundation has stated goals of fighting poverty and disease, has become a key figure in global health care — and his foundation was among four organizations that reportedly spent a total of $10 billion since 2020 to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
The first Trump administration launched “Operation Warp Speed” in April 2020 to speed up the development and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. More than 13 billion doses have been administered globally since 2021, per the World Health Organization.
Despite the initiative launching under Trump, many of his voters grew skeptical of the vaccines once they started being administered under President Joe Biden. Some even accused Gates of creating the virus himself in a purported effort to microchip or sterilize people.
In response to the conspiracy theories, Gates said earlier this year: “You almost have to laugh.”
According to an analysis in 2020 by The New York Times, there were 160,000 Facebook posts connecting Gates to the virus, and the 10 most popular YouTube videos alleging as much were viewed nearly 5 million times in March and April of that year alone.
Gates is among several billionaires making overtures toward fellow billionaire Trump following his election victory in November, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who congratulated Trump on beating Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump, who recently bragged about the tech giants visiting his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, wrote on his Truth Social media platform in December that Gates “asked to come, tonight.” The Palm Beach property has essentially become a haven for those seeking influence.
Gates told the Journal that he and one of his associates, as well as incoming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, joined Trump for the “wide-ranging” dinner discussion earlier this month — and said he had educated Trump on the burgeoning danger of a polio resurgence.
“We’ve had cases show up Gaza,” Gates told the Journal. “We have cases in Africa. And he was fascinated to hear what he could do to maximize the chance that during the next four years, that incredible milestone [of eradicating the purported polio threat] will be achieved.”
“I felt like he was energized and looking forward to helping to drive innovation,” said Gates in the interview clip released Friday. “You know, I was frankly impressed with how well he showed a lot of interest in the issues I brought up.”
Gates, who reportedly donated some $50 million to help elect Harris in the election, noted that Tesla CEO Elon Musk — an increasingly influential confidante of Trump’s who will reportedly be given his own office on the White House campus — wasn’t present.
The full conversation will be released sometime next week.
