Melinda French Gates Says Today’s Billionaire’s Not Philanthropic Enough

The ex-wife of Microsoft founder Bill Gates called out the “new generation of billionaires” this week, saying they aren’t giving enough of their money away to charitable causes.

Melinda French Gates, who’s a billionaire herself, specifically called out Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, saying they really just use their “megaphones” rather than their bank accounts to try to affect change in the world.

Maybe not coincidentally, French Gates grouped those two billionaires together because they are the co-founders of PayPal. Musk eventually left the company and founded other entrepreneurial ventures such as Tesla and SpaceX and purchased the social media company formerly known as Twitter.

Speaking with The New York Times this week, French Gates discussed the philanthropic approach that “billionaire activists” of today are showing. The Times specifically asked about Musk and Thiel, as well as Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman.

French Gates responded:

“Well, the people you just named have not been very philanthropic yet. They use their voice and they use their megaphones, but I would not call those men philanthropists.”

When she was married to Bill Gates, French Gates co-founded the Gates Foundation, which as of 2023 had donated $59.5 billion total since it was first founded in 2000.

French Gates had stayed on with the foundation for three years after she divorced her ex-husband in 2021 before announcing in May that she would be stepping aside from her role as the organization’s co-chair. 

When she made that announcement, she said she would still be committed to “people and organizations working on behalf of women and families around the world, including on reproductive rights in the United States.”

French Gates has drawn the ire of Musk in the past. He criticized her earlier this year when she originally endorsed President Joe Biden for the 2024 election. At the time, Musk said that decision “might be the downfall of western civilization.”

Since Biden has dropped out of the race, French Gates endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president. She’s the likely Democratic nominee after Biden and many other Democrats immediately threw their support behind her.

When she issued her endorsement of Harris, French Gates said that the U.S. needs a leader to advocate for a woman’s right to an abortion.

The Times asked French Gates during the interview what she thought about Musk’s comments about her, to which she replied they were “silly.”

In elaborating, she said tech CEOs too frequently try to give advice on a lot of topics that they aren’t experts about. As she said:

“I’ve just watched over the years tech leaders interviewed about their parenting style. A male who spent, you know, 60 hours at his company that week, and I’m sure he’s a fantastic CEO and has done a great job. But, then they get asked about parenting, and they spew all this stuff, and you think, something doesn’t add up here, so just — some of these comments to me are just kind of silly.”