# Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation **The Gates Foundation** (renamed from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in January 2025) is one of the largest private foundations in the world. Launched in 2000 and based in Seattle, it is chaired by [[Bill Gates]] and run by CEO Mark Suzman, and it works on global health and vaccines, agricultural development, and U.S. education. In the Right Wing KB it is two things at once: the clearest case of billionaire philanthropy setting public policy outside democratic accountability, and the single most common target of right-wing conspiracy theory about philanthropy. ## Size and the 2045 sunset | Date | Event | |---|---| | May 8, 2025 | Gates announces the foundation will spend about $200 billion over 20 years and close on December 31, 2045; it had given away more than $100 billion since 2000 | | Jan 14, 2026 | Record 2026 budget of $9 billion (up from $8.74 billion); up to 500 of 2,375 staff to be cut by 2030; operating costs capped at $1.25 billion | | July 14, 2026 | [[Warren Buffett]] ends his 2006 pledge of annual gifts, which had sent more than $47 billion in Berkshire Hathaway stock to the foundation, and redirects it to his children's foundations | Endowment estimates for 2025 range from about $77 billion (ABC News, May 2025) to $86–89 billion in other accounts, depending on date and method. ## Governance shocks **French Gates exit.** [[Melinda French Gates]] announced her departure on May 13, 2024 and left on June 7, taking $12.5 billion from Bill Gates personally, not from the foundation, for her own work on women and families. **Epstein.** The Justice Department's early-2026 release of Epstein files included a draft email attributed to Epstein making allegations about Gates; the foundation called them "absolutely absurd and completely false." In April 2026 it commissioned an external review of its past engagement with [[Jeffrey Epstein]] and its vetting policies. Buffett called the association "distasteful" but said it was not his main reason for stopping his gifts. **Arabella.** In 2025 the foundation stopped funding nonprofit funds administered by [[Arabella Advisors]], after about $450 million over sixteen years, a move the right-wing press celebrated as a blow to Democratic "dark money." ## Policy footprint - **Global health.** Its partnerships with the [[World Health Organization]] and the Gavi vaccine alliance give a private actor a large say in international health priorities. When [[DOGE]] gutted [[United States Agency for International Development]] in 2025, Gates said [[Elon Musk]] was "killing the world's poorest children." - **Education.** It was the largest early funder of the Common Core standards and a major backer of charter schools. - **[[ALEC]].** It funded ALEC's education work until April 2012, when, in the backlash over Stand Your Ground laws after Trayvon Martin's killing, it said it would give no new money (see [[ALEC Ecosystem]]). - **Agriculture.** Its Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa has been criticized for pushing commercial seed and fertilizer dependence. ## The conspiracy layer The legitimate accountability critique is shadowed by a conspiracy version: vaccine microchips, deliberate depopulation, and Gates's personal farmland holdings (owned through his investment firm, not the foundation) as a plot to control the food supply. These circulate through the [[Anti-Vax Movement]] and [[Children's Health Defense]], and slot Gates into the [[Global Cabal]] alongside [[George Soros]] and the [[World Economic Forum]]. See [[Bill Gates]] for the full treatment. ## See Also - [[Bill Gates]] · [[Melinda French Gates]] · [[Warren Buffett]] · [[Philanthropy Ecosystem]] - [[Rockefeller Foundation]] · [[Ford Foundation]] · [[Open Society Foundations]] · [[Audacious Project]] - [[Andrew Carnegie]] · [[Technocracy]] · [[Global Cabal]] · [[Conspiracy Theory]]