The Microsoft co-founder condemned Elon Musk for overseeing severe budget cuts to the U.S. foreign aid agency during the Trump administration.

Bill Gates didn’t hold back when he accused Elon Musk of contributing to the deaths of children in impoverished countries by gutting the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). It’s Gates’s harshest criticism yet of Musk, the current richest man in the world — a title Gates himself once held.

In interviews with both The New York Times Magazine and the Financial Times, Gates attacked Musk’s role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency under President Trump. He blamed Musk for slashing USAID’s budget, which Gates said reversed decades of progress in fighting measles, HIV, and polio.

In his Times Magazine feature, Gates stated: “Musk threw USAID into the wood chipper” — referencing a February social media post in which Musk mocked the agency while boasting about the cuts.

Gates also cast doubt on Musk’s commitment to the Giving Pledge, a voluntary promise to donate at least half of one’s fortune to charity. Musk signed the pledge in 2012. “He could still become a great philanthropist,” Gates said. “But right now, the richest man in the world has played a role in the deaths of its poorest children.”

The criticism came just as Gates announced that the Gates Foundation, which turned 25 this week, would wind down operations over the next two decades. Gates pledged to donate another $200 billion during that time, effectively giving away his entire fortune.

In the Financial Times interview published Thursday, Gates was even more blunt: “The image of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pleasant one.”

That same day, White House spokesperson Harrison Fields issued a statement defending Musk and hitting back at Gates. “Elon Musk is a patriot carrying out President Trump’s mission to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. Rather than criticizing from the sidelines, backbenchers should praise America’s most innovative entrepreneur for volunteering his time to serve taxpayers and hold Washington accountable.”

Source: New York Times

Bill Gates: “DOGE will cost 2M lives” pic.twitter.com/yJopmVZTIs

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