Billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates reflected on a recent dinner he had with President-elect Trump in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, saying he was “impressed” by the former president.
“About two weeks ago I had the opportunity to go and have a long and actually quite intriguing dinner with him,” Gates told WSJ editor-in-chief Emma Tucker.
Gates said the discussion at the dinner, which also included Susie Wiles, the new White House chief of staff, focused on innovation in global health. Trump reportedly became “quite excited” as they discussed the possible development of a cure for HIV and efforts to reduce polio.
“He accelerated vaccine innovation in the Covid days,” Gates said, according to WSJ. “So I asked him if maybe the same thing could be done here, and I think we both got pretty excited about that.”
Gates' foundation, the Bill and Melina Gates Foundation, specifically has initiatives that focus on both issues.
“He was fascinated to hear what he could do to maximize the chances of achieving that incredible milestone in the next four years,” Gates said of the possible eradication of polio.
“I felt like he had energy and was looking forward to helping drive innovation,” Gates said of the conversation during the nearly three-hour dinner. “I was honestly impressed with how well he showed a lot of interest in the issues I was raising.”
The meeting comes shortly after Trump posted on X that Gates had requested to join him at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago. The billionaire and the former president have met several times in the past, despite Gates occasionally being critical of the newly elected president.
Gates is one of several billionaires who took steps to reach out to Trump after his election victory. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago last month. Amazon donated $1 million to the president-elect's inaugural fund, as did OpenAI's Sam Altman and several major companies, including Ford, Google, Meta and more.
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