Bill Gates will not give up. The Microsoft co-founder turned philanthropist is continuing his public campaign against the Trump administration’s drastic cuts to U.S. foreign aid, warning of disastrous and preventable consequences for global health programs.
His strategy is twofold: sound the alarm on the immediate human cost while highlighting the long-term benefits of American generosity. He just did both.
Gates amplified a harrowing, firsthand account from a doctor in Africa whose clinic, funded by PEPFAR (the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), is on the verge of collapse. The post, relayed by Sam Stein of The Bulwark, detailed how life-saving HIV treatments for children are set to expire in “a few weeks.”
“We have been waiting for months for a resupply,” the doctor testified. “And it’s not just us.”
The crisis stems directly from the Trump administration’s decision to slash foreign aid and close agencies like USAID, a move heavily influenced by Elon Musk’s federal government chainsaw, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Gates seized on the doctor’s cry from the heart to drive home the real-world impact.
“The devastating effects of these cuts are entirely preventable—and it’s not too late to reverse them,” the billionaire declared on X on July 11.
The devastating effects of these cuts are entirely preventable—and it’s not too late to reverse them.
— Bill Gates (@BillGates) July 11, 2025
On the same day, Gates released a video highlighting the historic success of U.S. aid in global vaccination efforts. He explained that vaccines are the primary reason childhood deaths have been cut in half over the past few decades, from 10 million per year to under 5 million. He warned that the administration’s proposed cuts to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, would directly lead to “a million additional deaths.”
“I hope we can maintain the generosity to keep these people alive,” Gates concluded.
Thanks to vaccines, fewer children are dying from preventable diseases around the world. Cutting funding for them would reverse that progress and put millions of children in danger. pic.twitter.com/UF7IaASepq
— Bill Gates (@BillGates) July 11, 2025
This is not a new fight for Gates. In early July, he took to X to condemn the devastating impact of the cuts, citing a grim study from the medical journal The Lancet. “A study in the Lancet recently looked at the cumulative impact of reductions in American aid. It found that, by 2040, 8 million more children will die before their fifth birthday,” Gates posted. His conclusion was blunt: “The facts are simple and devastating: Aid cuts have already cost lives, and the number of deaths will continue to rise.”
In a May interview with the Financial Times, Gates was even more direct, placing the blame on the architect of the administration’s cost-cutting measures. “The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one,” he said of Elon Musk. He repeated a version of that line to the New York Times, stating that while Musk could become a great philanthropist, “In the meantime, the world’s richest man has been involved in the deaths of the world’s poorest children.”
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