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THREAD: In late 1998, Bill and Melinda Gates hosted a dinner (apparently memorable, lamb chops) at their $127 million lakeside mansion nicknamed Xanadu 2.0. They had just given $100 million for vaccines but asked: What if we gave more, much more? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/23/world/bill-gates-vaccine-coronavirus.html
They ended up giving $750 million to start GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance. That was a lot of money in those days. It still is, but it was even more jaw dropping 20 years ago. /2 https://www.gatesfoundation.org/Media-Center/Press-Releases/1999/11/Global-Alliance-for-Vaccines-and-Immunization
How can a man who is not a scientist nor a doctor, not elected nor accountable to anyone but his wife Melinda and his friend Warren Buffett, wield so much power in the realm of global public health? /3
Bill Gates has always been polarizing, since he was a boy genius racking up speeding tickets and changing personal computing. /4
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/mugshots/celebrity/business/bill-gates
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/mugshots/celebrity/business/bill-gates
As a young reporter I covered the second round of the Microsoft antitrust trial for @wsj at a time when people compared him to John D. Rockefeller for how he ran his Windows monopoly. /5 https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-fact
In the years since he’s evolved into Rockefeller the philanthropist. There has been pretty serious debate in recent years about how philanthropy works and doesn’t, such as you find in the work of @anandwrites and @LinseyMcgoey /6
https://www.versobooks.com/books/2344-no-such-thing-as-a-free-gift
https://www.versobooks.com/books/2344-no-such-thing-as-a-free-gift
Probably the most common critique of the foundation’s approach to health is how close he is to pharmaceutical companies, including the grants he gives them. The “Saint Bill?” cover story in The Nation by @TimothyWSchwab delves deep into the numbers. /7 https://www.thenation.com/article/society/bill-gates-foundation-philanthropy/
Fun fact from the cutting room floor of my story with @mega2e: The CEO Roundtables Gates hosts with pharma execs begin with a disclaimer from an antitrust lawyer. /8
Gates remains controversial but it’s unfortunate that the discussion is muddied by baseless conspiracy theories, which make rational arguments about the role of philanthropy in public health more difficult /9 https://news.yahoo.com/new-yahoo-news-you-gov-poll-shows-coronavirus-conspiracy-theories-spreading-on-the-right-may-hamper-vaccine-efforts-152843610.html
Because he is incredibly influential. Who else talks to Angela Merkel and the CEO of Pfizer, funds scientific research but also guarantees the purchase of hundreds of millions of vaccine doses? The foundation plays at the highest level at each stage. /10
We took a deep, close look at how the foundation is responding to the Covid-19 pandemic and hope you’ll take the time to give it a read. / end https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/23/world/bill-gates-vaccine-coronavirus.html
