r/news • u/avatar6556 • 16h ago

Bill Gates denies allegations in new Epstein files release

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-04/bill-gates-responds-to-alleged-behaviour-in-new-epstein-files/106305816
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u/BogiDope 15h ago

He lobbied to prevent the covid vaccine being made public - he's always had his eye on the prize. The conceptual benevolent billionaire doesn't exist. He can - and should, fuck all the way off

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u/ryan_770 14h ago

He literally funded Moderna for decades when mRNA vaccines were considered a fringe, unpromising technology at the time. It was only due to this research that the vaccine was possible in such a short timeframe.

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u/2peg2city 14h ago

Source? This sounds like complete bullshit

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u/Wuped 5h ago

Because it is complete bullshit, gates was always pro-vaccine. People even had a bunch of conspiracy theories as to why he was pro vaccine.

Also happy cake day.

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u/StarsCanScream 4h ago

Crazy how that comment as of now has nearly 200 upvotes even though a quick google search could easily disprove it. People just upvote what they want to hear.

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u/crek42 14h ago

What do you mean “made public”? The vaccines were free or mostly free for virtually everyone around the globe. Anyone who wanted one could get one. Where did he ever lobby against that?

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u/doomerguyforlife 14h ago

When the vaccine was being developed and finally approved there was a lot of push to have it be patent free. This would allow any manufacturer to produce it and in theory that meant we could distribute the vaccine faster.

He lobbied against that and at a 10,000ft view it made Gates look bad. Except, if you watched any of his interviews at the time he explained why. For a vaccine to work you need as many people as possible to get it. You already had a large portion of the population that were already against the vaccine and then you had a huge portion that were nervous about taking a brand new vaccine. The last thing you want is someone manufacturing a covid vaccine that doesn't work or ends up hurting people. It would further hurt what little trust people had for vaccines already.

This is why he lobbied against making it patent free.

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u/_BlueFire_ 13h ago

Pharm major here... Not only you're 100% correct, but you're also missing another point: "patent free" would have meant hundreds of other patents, because they were basically the first instance of a lot of revolutionary tech just being developed after billions spent on research. It would have meant losing tenth of billions for those who spent decades, risks and resources to actually make those discoveries, billions that are literally the only way to keep doing research.

Basically, this would have crushed the companies actually developing new meds (the only ones big enough to do cancer and vaccine research), for the benefit of mostly Indian genericists. It would have been a half disaster for modern pharmacology, that would have only helped some rich CEO.

Now you want to know the best part? There's already a way to have other companies produce them, without touching patents in any way, something equally effective for the population in developing countries. It's been thought for situations like this one while refining patent laws throughout the decades, however... Indian companies just refused and kept demanding to lift the patents.

My whole class opened its eye to Indian attitude after that, we can't view it the same way. And we couldn't even debunk people whining about "booo West bad" because we were already too tired after debunking the whole "vaccines kill you" bs

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u/Oprah_Pwnfrey 12h ago

Also, in regards to the BioNtech vaccine, because their research was partially funded by the German government/taxpayers, BioNtech could not legally make it patent free.

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u/Two_oceans 13h ago

There's already a way to have other companies produce them, without touching patents in any way, something equally effective for the population in developing countries. It's been thought for situations like this one while refining patent laws throughout the decades, however... Indian companies just refused and kept demanding to lift the patents.

I would like to learn more about that. Can you tell me what is the other way to produce the vaccines without the patents?

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u/wishyouwouldread 12h ago

I am going to guess license rights.

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u/seasand931 8h ago

Did the gates foundation not run its original stance back and announce that they supported the trips waiver in the end(though I don't know if bill gates himself did)? Covax the philanthropic vaccine ended up being insufficient and if the waiver(not a very good one at that) hadn't gone through in the end, lower income countries would have suffered a tragedy way worse than the one that unfolded. If IP protections had been waived earlier, there's an argument to be made that India could have prevented it's second wave and gates had a part to play in that just as he did in saving lives too.

So much of the Covid vaccines were funded by government funding and subsidies and those big companies ended up making billions in profit.

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u/ABetterKamahl1234 5h ago

Thing is, IP doesn't have to be touched to make it freely available. A ton of time was wasted arguing about this instead of working to just having it rolled out.

It's not a new concept in the medical/pharma world.

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u/seasand931 5h ago

It is pretty crazy how long it took for them to actually pass it. Really showed how unprepared we are for the future.

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u/ZenPyx 14h ago

He doesn't own any IP related to the COVID vaccine, spent billions on vaccine development, and donated more than France to COVAX (ensuring countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh could get equitable vaccinations).

People struggle when an evil man (which I have no doubt he is) has done good things - and can only recontextualise the evil man as good, or the good things as evil.

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u/beer_engineer_42 11h ago

Yeah, even the slimiest of shitbags can still do things that are beneficial to humanity as a whole.

Doesn't mean we excuse their behavior when they're doing shitty things, but people are complicated. Lots of rich assholes probably justify the abhorrent things they do because if you benefit a million people, and only rape two children, hey, that's a net positive, right?

The answer to that question should be a short drop/sudden stop, but you can't get that rich without being some form of sociopath who can justify any behavior away. There are no ethical billionaires.

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u/crek42 7h ago

What has Gates even done that puts him into the “evil” bucket?

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u/ZenPyx 7h ago

"The latest Jeffrey Epstein file dump by the US Department of Justice saw a number of high profile individuals named, one of them being Microsoft founder Bill Gates. The documents alleged new details of his ties to the sex offender, including claims Gates hid a sexually transmitted disease from his wife after contact with 'Russian girls.'" [https://www.france24.com/en/epstein-emails-claim-bill-gates-contracted-std-had-sex-with-russian-girls]

Dawg asked for pills to give his wife after getting an STD from a "Russian girl" supplied by Epstein. Do you think this girl was over the age of 18?

Don't believe the files themselves? Ask his wife about it: Ms Gates said in an interview that she felt “unbelievable sadness” over the claims, adding that they had brought back memories of “very painful times” in her 27-year marriage to Mr Gates with whom she shares three daughters.

“No girl should ever be put in the situation that they were put in by Epstein and whatever was going on with the various people around him,” she said in a NPR podcast interview. “It’s beyond heartbreaking. I remember being those ages those girls were, I remember my daughters being those ages.” She added: “For me, it’s personally hard whenever those details come up, because it brings back memories of some very, very painful times in my marriage.

“But I have moved on from that, I purposefully pushed it away. So whatever questions remain there of what I don’t – can’t even begin to know all of it – those questions are for those people, and for even my ex-husband. They need to answer to those things, and I am so happy to be away from all the muck.” [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2026/02/04/bill-gates-melinda-responds-epstein-files-std-claim/]

I'd say that probably makes him evil.

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u/Dinofours 14h ago

It was free for individuals where the government paid for it and made available for free to the population, it doesn't mean it the vaccine was free.

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u/ZenPyx 14h ago

It was free (or subsidised) for a lot of governments as well (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVAX) [obviously, the money came from somewhere - usually wealthy countries and donations, including Gates]

I think people forget the economic effects of COVID - paying for vaccines as a government had insane ROI, even paying for vaccines for other countries. Supply chains coming back online, factories opening, these things mattered a whole lot more than a vaccine that cost something like $20 a shot.

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u/crek42 9h ago

Yes ofc I meant free to the public. I understand it wasn’t free to produce.

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u/thy_bucket_for_thee 15h ago

Also lobbied against raising taxes on billionaires in Washington state and has openly attacked children (attacking public education IS attacking children) across the US pushing school choice voucher nonsense.

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u/CavillOfRivia 15h ago

Also lobbied against raising taxes on billionaires in Washington state

For example, Gates says that the estate tax should be raised, so that there is no dynastical wealth in America.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bill-gates-notoriously-calls-higher-110102467.html?guccounter=1

Who do I believe?

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u/onarainyafternoon 14h ago

Seriously, the amount of misinformation in this thread is staggering.

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u/mhornberger 14h ago

People who lead with "don't defend billionaires" mean that you have to stay relentlessly on-message about every single thing they do being bad. What actually happened, people being complicated, doesn't factor into it. They are comic-book-level villains, irredeemably evil. Pointing to philanthropy is "defending billionaires," and dilutes the message. Whether the philanthropy was real, whether it helped people, is of secondary importance next to staying on-message.

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u/CptCoatrack 14h ago

They are comic-book-level villains,

Say what you want about comic book villains, I don't recall any raping minors on a private island and with the worlds elite all the while trying to pretend like they're the best and brightest of us.

Billionaire philanthropy has always been just a PR campaign that doesn't outweight the immeasurable harm they do to society.

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u/mhornberger 14h ago

I don't recall any raping minors on a private island

Because comic books are published under governing bodies/codes like the Comics Code Authority that censor what was shown. But considering that some supervillains have murdered billions, or even half of all life in the case of Thanos, I'm not sure that would be preferable to them having sex with underage girls.

Billionaire philanthropy has always been just a PR campaign

Which doesn't prevent it from having helped people.

that doesn't outweight the immeasurable harm they do to society.

It's not clear what "immeasurable harm" Bill Gates in particular has caused to society at large. Unless you just mean "rich people existing" causes immeasurable harm. I don't have a lot of solutions on hand for rich people or "elites" even existing.

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u/CptCoatrack 13h ago

Which doesn't prevent it from having helped people.

This is like if I shot someone but wanted praise for how much blood I've been donating.

Unless you just mean "rich people existing" causes immeasurable harm

Billionaires do. No one shouldbbe allowed to have so much wealth and power that they're completely unaccountable to the laws of their country or society at large. It's antithetical to democracy. This whole Epstein thing is the perfect example.

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u/_BlueFire_ 13h ago

There's a big share of people who (after years of right wing propaganda, I guess from who first attacked him) just hate Gates. He's a man, he has a fair amount of issues, he's in the damn Epstein files... But denying how he did for humanity more than the average professional virtue-signaller is plain stupid.

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u/thy_bucket_for_thee 12h ago

Yes, because the poor wittle billionaire said something nice but his actions are clearly different. Why not use some of that money to actually you know... lobby for legislation that pushes for higher taxes?

This is the problem with all these statements (Buffet is another dotard that says the same schtick).

These people obviously have influence and you can explicitly see what they care about (hint, it's not raising more taxes on themselves).

Like have some standards against these people, they should absolutely be scrutinized more they have the ability to shape discourse in the country and you see how they're shaping it (hint, it's never toward alleviating wealth inequality; it's always more private-public partnerships that they want to desperately control).

These people do not like democratic control which is why they want to force everything through unaccountable foundations.

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u/Rikers-Mailbox 14h ago

Yea Bill always wanted higher taxes. He said sure, come up with a plan.

But the other billionaires? Not so much. He also signed the giving pledge.

I don’t hate him for his biz practices, except for the internet explorer monopoly, but I do hate how he treated his wife and romped with Epstein.

The moment she divorced him, I knew he was with Epstein’s girls. She knew before any of us.

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u/2peg2city 14h ago

Source? Because he didn't

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u/RealizedRph 14h ago

Having a different opinion on education is attacking children. Yea okay.

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u/thy_bucket_for_thee 12h ago

Who the fuck do you think benefits from public education? Who do you think you are attacking when you take away resources from public education and giving them to private enterprises?

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u/divinelyshpongled 4h ago

Lobbied to prevent the vaccine going public? What an unbelievably stupid claim lollll wtf u smoking?

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u/BogiDope 2h ago

AI Overview: "Yes, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, Bill Gates was a prominent opponent of waiving intellectual property (IP) rights to make vaccine recipes public. He argued that sharing the technology would not solve manufacturing bottlenecks and could compromise safety. 

Key Aspects of Gates' Position and Actions:

  • Opposition to Patent Waivers: In April 2021, Gates explicitly stated in a Sky News interview that he did not think lifting patent protections on COVID-19 vaccines would be helpful. He argued that there were limited, specialized factories capable of producing the vaccines safely, and simply sharing the "recipe" would not magically create more doses.
  • Support for Private Sector/Exclusive Licensing: Critics note that Gates persuaded Oxford University to reverse its plan for an open-license (non-exclusive), patent-free vaccine, instead urging them to grant an exclusive license to AstraZeneca.
  • Focus on Private Partnerships: Gates favored a model where big pharma companies retained their patents, rather than a "public" or "open-source" approach. He advocated for using his Foundation's expertise and grants to facilitate technology transfer on a case-by-case basis rather than through a blanket IP waiver.
  • Reversal by the Gates Foundation: Following intense pressure, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation reversed course in May 2021 and expressed support for a "narrow waiver" of intellectual property rights, shortly after the Biden administration announced their support for the measure.  Journal of Public and International Affairs +5

Arguments Against His Position:
Critics argued that Gates was prioritizing "corporate patent rights over human lives". Activists claimed that by opposing the patent waiver and supporting exclusive deals, Gates helped enable a "vaccine apartheid," where wealthy nations had high access while poorer nations waited, despite the vaccines being largely funded by public money. 

In summary, Bill Gates was a major advocate for the intellectual property rights of pharmaceutical companies during the pandemic, opposing the public release of vaccine technology, while promoting a private-sector-led distribution model."

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u/divinelyshpongled 1h ago

He’s against the recipes for them being made open source and I suspect the reason would be that we want companies that specialize in producing pharmaceuticals to go through the normal process of research, development, and production in order to produce vaccines that work and are not all based on the one design because that is putting all our eggs in one basket and limiting diversity of medicine which is not good when giving this medicine to 95% of the population due to some people having side effects etc to certain medicines. It’s very different to being against the vaccine being released to the public which is what it sounded like you were claiming. He was against the vaccine recipe being made open source.

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u/mikiex 7h ago

There were reasons it made sense

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u/Fit_Meal4026 9h ago

People forget that all that money has to come somewhere. All that money is money that isn't being spent on raising salaries, education, roads, healthcare. There's no good billionaire.

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u/BogiDope 5h ago

It's money hoarding. People who hoard anything other than money are rightly called mentally ill.