Add Bill Gates to growing the list of billionaires dining with President-elect Donald Trump before he returns to the White House.
The Microsoft co-founder said he recently spent more than three hours with Trump and spoke to him about global health challenges.
“I had a chance, about two weeks ago, to go have a long and actually quite intriguing dinner with him,” Gates said during an interview with Wall Street Journal Editor in Chief Emma Tucker.
The meeting also included Susie Wiles, the incoming White House chief of staff, Gates said. Fellow tech billionaire Elon Musk, a Trump confidant, wasn’t among the small group of people whom Gates mentioned as having attended.
Gates described the discussion as “quite wide-ranging.” He said they talked about global health issues, which has been a focus of his philanthropic work through the Gates Foundation.
The conversation covered topics including efforts to develop a cure for HIV, Gates added. “He, in the Covid days, accelerated the vaccine innovation,” Gates said.
“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.”
Gates also said he discussed efforts to combat polio around the world.
“I felt like he was energized and looking forward to helping to drive innovation,” Gates said. “I was frankly impressed with how well he showed a lot of interest in the issues I brought up.”
Business titans have been working to make inroads with Trump since the Republican’s presidential election victory in November. A series of top executives have met with Trump, including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, and major companies have donated to fund Trump’s inauguration.
NEW – Bill Gates is “impressed” and “excited” after meeting with Trump: “he showed a lot of interest in the issues I brought up.”pic.twitter.com/pf9H94gJ3u
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) January 17, 2025
