This article originally appeared on Business Insider.
Melinda French Gates has said the new generation of billionaires, such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, primarily use their “megaphones” instead of their bank accounts to effect change.
In an interview with The New York Times, French Gates was asked what she thought about the approach to philanthropy shown by the new generation of “billionaire activists” — including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, the hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman, and the PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel.
“Well, the people you just named have not been very philanthropic yet,” French Gates replied. “They use their voice and they use their megaphones, but I would not call those men philanthropists.”
In May, French Gates announced her intention to step down from her role as co-chair of the Gates Foundation, which she founded with her former husband, the Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates.
In her announcement, she said she’d remain committed to “people and organizations working on behalf of women and families around the world, including on reproductive rights in the United States.”
In January, Elon Musk criticized French Gates’s decision to endorse President Joe Biden in the 2024 election, saying the decision “might be the downfall of Western civilization.” French Gates has since endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, who became the likely Democratic nominee after Biden left the race earlier this month. In her endorsement of Harris, French Gates emphasized the need for a leader who would advocate for abortion rights.
French Gates also told the Times that she found Musk’s criticism of her political activism “silly.”
When asked to elaborate, French Gates said she thought tech CEOs frequently gave advice on topics on which they weren’t experts.
“I’ve just watched over the years tech leaders interviewed about their parenting style,” French Gates said. “A male who has spent, you know, 60 hours at his company that week, and I’m sure he’s a fantastic CEO and has done a great job. But then they get asked about parenting, and they spew all this stuff, and you think, something doesn’t add up here, so just — some of these comments to me are just kind of silly.”
French Gates told the Times she decided to get involved in politics after the 2022 Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the half-century-old decision that had protected abortion rights.
“I knew I had to speak out in favor of women’s rights,” she said, “and if there was a candidate who is against women’s rights and says terrible things about women, there is no way I could vote for that person.”
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