For some reason, his name comes up a lot in media reporting and discussion of the pandemic. Some of it is from conspiracy theorists with various theories of what his sinister role is, but much of it is from the MSM, and consists of straightforward reporting on his latest assessment of the future of the pandemic and/or his position of covid-related issues.
Why is this? Does he have some sort of genuine expertise and unique insight into the pandemic as compared to any other random (rich) guy? Or does he perhaps play a crucial role via some of his charitable endeavors?
In sum, why does anyone care about what Bill Gates thinks about the pandemic more than what he thinks about energy policy, or more than what Jeff Bezos thinks about the pandemic?
Probably because his foundation is such a major player in global health policy. In fact they have an entire division called the Global Health Program that has so far distributed $7.8 billion in global health initiatives.
Because Bill Gates spends a lot of money getting vaccines into undeveloped areas.
In fact, IIRC, it’s always been one of the big goals of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Bill Gates does interviews on pandemics and related topics. He’s not an expert, of course:
He got an award for this recently (paywalled):
One of the world’s richest people decided to help fight poverty and inequity. Of course he’s unpopular among many people, which makes him an easy target for conspiracy theories. And that’s on top of his own (non-disease related) misbehavior.
He has a world-class intellect, unlimited resources, a well-developed infrastructure and track record for public health activities, and everybody in the world will take his call.
He should be listened to and taken very seriously on issues like this.
According to one of my MAGA acquaintances, Gates wants to rule the world, he’s responsible for both the virus and the vaccine, and Fauci beckons to his call.
As mentioned, Gates’ charitable contributions to global health, and specifically for vaccines, elevate him into the news regarding the pandemic. That, and the right’s total war on Democrats - he is seen as left-leaning. To them, any billionaire not totally in their camp is a suspicious enemy (like Soros). As a result, Gates is both in the news and part of the whack-o-sphere.
In fact, his charitable contributions were part of the reason why the vaccine rollout went so quickly. As I understand it, in the usual course of affairs, a drug company would only start mass-production once they got FDA approval, because that’s a lot of capital outlay that would go to waste if the approval didn’t come. But Gates funded the mass-production of something like the top 8 vaccine candidates, months before they were approved, so that as soon as they were approved, there was already a stockpile of them (and the ones that weren’t approved went to unprofitable waste).
When he and Melinda divorced last year, it came out that Bill was friends with Jeffrey Epstein for a period of time, had a lengthy extra-marital affair, and had romantically pursued women who worked for him.
I am skeptical of this claim. I found a source for Bill Gates saying that he intended to do this for 7 vaccines, but none which said that he actually did, and descriptions of the various vaccine developments don’t mention his role. Rather, that the federal government either funded the development or committed in advance to buy large quantities, which made the accelerated timetable possible. In the source mentioned, Gates thought it would take 18 months to develop the vaccine, and I suspect that the actual timetable overtook him. Bill Gates is able—and willing—to lose big money funding factories for COVID-19 vaccines | Fierce Pharma
It’s quite possible that I was incorrectly working from the statements you found that he would do so, and that, in the event, he didn’t actually do so.
