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Elon Musk is responsible for “killing the world’s poorest children,” says Bill Gates
(arstechnica.com)
this post was submitted on 08 May 2025
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If you had read the article, you would know that he very actively pressured Oxford not to open license the vaccine, leveraging his $750 million donation to the university for vaccine research.
Really? Show me where.
It claims that he bragged about doing so, and links to another article.
But that other article doesn't support that claim with any evidence that he pressured them to keep their patent, that he bragged about it, or had any say in the final decision.
The sentence after where it says that... You have ctrl f. Use it.
Not sure what "evidence" you want... Bill Gates said it was true himself and did multiple interviews talking about it which are not hard to find. Every article I can find online says the same story - that Oxford initially planned to open license the vaccine and then Gates pressured them to change course.
It doesn't quote him, though. It just links to an article. Of which I provided the only seemingly relevant quotes.
Does "we told them... you really need to team up." count as bragging?
That's the only relevant quote I can see, and it amounts to him getting them to partner with AstraZeneca. It's hard to tell if the chicken comes before the egg - does AstraZeneca insist on patents, or does he?
Was it the only way to get a massive pharmaceutical partner like AstraZeneca to agree to a deal with Oxford? Or was it something he personally wanted?
Either way would appear the same - if he was directly involved in the deal, he'd be obligated to publically support it, patent restrictions and all.
The article is intentionally disingenous, as well. It claims:
Even though as you can see from - again - the same article it linked to before:
Which is - admittedly, temporarily - low prices and an extraordinarily reduced opportunity for profit. Especially given how significantly vaccination rate fell over time.
And:
There's no such thing as a good billionaire, but there is such a thing as worse billionaires. It seems like Bill Gates spent $750 million to fund vaccine development - including 1.5 million that happened to go to pre-pandemic funding of the decade-old research that made the mRNA technology even possible - and over a billion dollars on support for the WHO.
It also seems like he encouraged Oxford to partner with a giant pharmaeceutical company. This lead to them deciding not to open-source their vaccine.
It is a terrible thing to do, but it is also tough to say if they could have ever managed the immediately required production without a giant pharmaceutical partner like AstraZeneca. The first months of mass vaccination were by far the most critical.
Compared to Musk? Who took medication that was already manufactured, already bought and paid for, already in warehouses and ships and planes ready to help impoverished communities?
Who bought an election and leveraged that to suddenly and illegally cut off international aid out of spite and greed, allowing drug-resistant TB to flourish?
Who has the most money out of fucking all of them and doesn't spend a dime for anyone but himself?
That's the worst billionaire.