The Gates Foundation, co-founded by Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, will eliminate as many as 500 jobs in the coming years.
According to an internal email reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the foundation also opened an external review of its ties to the deceased sex offender and suspected sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Those 500 jobs, set to be phased out by 2030, represent approximately 20 percent of the organization’s total workforce.
According to the email, the foundation plans to cut 200 of those jobs by the end of 2027. Reductions in travel and other expenses will accompany the cuts.
“This is a challenging time for our organization in many ways, but it also highlights the critical importance of taking the tough actions now,” Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman wrote in the email.
When the Justice Department released files on Epstein in December and again in January, Gates’ name figured prominently.
The billionaire, for instance, appeared with various women in photos released by the House Oversight Committee in December.
Then, when the DOJ released a much larger batch of files in late January, a very unflattering email from Epstein suggested that Gates had contracted a sexually transmitted disease from Russian girls and had planned to give his then-wife Melinda Gates antibiotics without her knowledge — a suggestion that Melinda appeared to confirm in an interview with NPR.
The Microsoft billionaire later admitted to affairs with two Russian women and apologized to Foundation staffers. He also said that Epstein learned of the affairs.
On June 10, Gates will appear for an in-person transcribed interview before the House Oversight Committee.
For the foundation, the stakes appear high. After all, the internal email reviewed by the WSJ effectively linked the job cuts to the Epstein revelations.
On one hand, the Microsoft billionaire himself seems unlikely to suffer financially. According to Forbes’ real-time billionaires’ list, Gates ranks as the world’s 19th-richest person with an estimated net worth of $103.9 billion.
On the other hand, the foundation relies on substantial gifts from wealthy donors.
For instance, according to the Wall Street Journal, 95-year-old Berkshire Hathaway billionaire Warren Buffett — the world’s 13th-richest person, per Forbes — gave the Gates Foundation $43 billion between 2006 and 2024, and Buffett recently told CNBC that he might not give more.
The Gates Foundation has used its $86 billion endowment to address childhood mortality, infectious diseases, and other health and development issues in Africa.
Gates himself, however, has often commented on — and driven research funds toward — science and medicine more generally.
Indeed, despite his tech background, the Microsoft billionaire has focused on climate change and vaccines in particular.
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