I know Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest man in the world, is viewed as a ruthless individual who will fire whistleblowers during a pandemic, take away healthcare benefits from essential workers, and destroy whole industries.

But how real is the philanthropist image of Bill Gates, the second wealthiest individual on the planet?

In 2000, when Bill Gates left Microsoft he was worth $63 billion. (Forbes)

After twenty years of philanthropy, one would assume that his remaining fortune would be significantly less than that.

But in twenty years his net worth has increased from $63 billion to over $100 billion. (Wikipedia)

I should state that all of the conspiracy theories insisting that Bill Gates created the coronavirus in order to make money off of a vaccine are ridiculous—he already has over $100 BILLION!

Or to put it in perspective, he could buy up everything of Michael Bloomberg’s, set it on fire, and still have $50 billion left over.

Do billionaires want to be Bat Man 🦇?

By day they are Bruce Wayne, creating inequities through their Wayne Industries corporation. By night, they’re Bat Man promising to correct the problems that they helped to create.

Back to the conspiracy theorists for a moment. A fact used to support Bill Gates as pandemic creator is that Netflix released a puff-piece series, Inside Bill’s Brain, three months before the pandemic.

However, the timing, imho, has more to do with the wealth tax that multiple Democratic candidates for President were advocating:

If Bernie's wealth tax was signed into law in '82 Gates would be worth $9.9B; his family would inherit $2.5B w/Bernie's estate tax bill. (Warren Gunnels)

What the series did was to create this wonderful image of Gates as savior of humanity; so when he subsequently goes on television saying that a wealth tax isn’t a good idea, we instinctively believe him.

Bill Gates, in fact, originally created the whole philanthropist image to change public sentiment towards breaking up Microsoft by the Federal government.

Bill Gates's Philanthropic Giving Is a RacketBill Gates recently resigned from the board of Microsoft to focus full time on philanthropy. It's a perfect time to remember: billionaire-funded philanthropy is a public-relations scam.www.jacobinmag.com

Bill Gates Gives to the Rich (Including Himself)His renowned charitable activities seem to serve mainly private interests, namely his own.www.thenation.com

Fascinating analysis in The Nation of Inside Bill’s Brain.

One of the more interesting observations is the insular nature of the director’s choice of other voices to include:

Mostly, though, the film reinforces the image many of us already had of the ambitious technologist, insatiable brainiac, and heroic philanthropist. Inside Bill’s Brainfalls into a common trap: attempting to understand the world’s second-richest human by interviewing people in his sphere of financial influence.

Another observation. One of the interviewees in the series Davis Guggenheim, who speaks effusive praise of Gates. But nowhere is the true relationship with Gates revealed, including a conflict-of-interest for the praise:

Guggenheim doesn’t tell audiences that Noe is the principal of Lakeside School, a private institution to which the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given $80 million. The filmmaker also doesn’t mention the extraordinary conflict of interest this presents: The Gateses used their charitable foundation to enrich the private school their children attend, which charges students $35,000 a year.

I think that my perspective of Bill Gates might have changed if I had learned of this “self-enrichment” during the series.

Fascinating analysis in The Nation of Inside Bill’s Brain.

the nation endorsed Sanders in 2016, it is not a mainstream media company. This is one of the worst threads I've seen on Cake.

Imo, a moderator should not push their political views in such a provoative way on this forum.

It's click bait, looking for an arguement.

Respectfully, I disagree.

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