Bill Gates joined the chorus of people expressing shock and disappointment in President Trump’s announcement Tuesday that he would freeze U.S. funding for the World Health Organization.
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In a tweet about the matter, after 10 p.m. Seattle time, Gates said halting funding for WHO during a world health crisis “is as dangerous as it sounds” and that no other organization can replace the work of the WHO.
For a guy with nearly 50 million Twitter followers, who regularly gets anywhere from 1,000 to 30,000 likes for what he shares on the social media platform, Gates’ Tuesday tweet touched a bigger-than-normal nerve and went viral. It was ticking beyond 200,000 likes Wednesday morning, more than 54,000 retweets and 28,000 replies.
Halting funding for the World Health Organization during a world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds. Their work is slowing the spread of COVID-19 and if that work is stopped no other organization can replace them. The world needs @WHO now more than ever.
— Bill Gates (@BillGates) April 15, 2020
The Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist has not been shy about sharing his opinion about the ongoing health crisis, what steps should have been taken to prevent it, what needs to be done to slow it and what missteps have been made by Trump and the federal government.
Gates has been a regular on television news programs and he’s done interviews with a variety of outlets. “We should have done more,” he said on March 24. The fact that he saw it all coming, and expressed how unprepared we all were in a TED Talk five years ago, has been a constant reminder when his name comes up during the current pandemic.
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Trump, who has been widely criticized for a slow and ineffective response as the coronavirus hit the U.S., has been increasingly agitated at his daily White House news briefings on the crisis. On Tuesday, the president defended his early decision to halt travel between China and the U.S. and blamed the WHO for “severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.”
Last year, the United States contributed about $553 million of the WHO’s $6 billion budget, The New York Times reported, calling it “a significant sum to lose in the middle of a pandemic.”
Replies to Gates’ tweet ranged from agreement to calls for him to write a check himself. Many of those criticizing Gates tweeted their own conspiracy theories about his agenda, his work on vaccines and worse.
It is WILD to see the replies to this tweet. @BillGates let go of what was the most valuable software/tech company that he controlled, and has selflessly led more impactful philanthropy than perhaps anyone. https://t.co/5Y0EAmAMLB
— Satyan Gajwani (@satyan) April 15, 2020
In a Twitter thread of his own, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, a friend of Bill and Melinda Gates, shared his own view of the WHO and linked to his column about Trump’s decision, headlined “Trump’s Deadly Search for a Scapegoat.”
Yes, WHO is bureaucratic, timid, frustrating. It is too cozy with China, too hostile to Taiwan. It has made mistakes in its handling of Covid — but it did a much better job than the Trump administration did (a low bar). It's also indispensable. No other agency can fill its role.
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) April 15, 2020
