A tale of two leaders: what Elon Musk could learn from Bill Gates

In 1 country is the bespectacled tortoise, Bill Gates. In the other, the chainsaw-wielding hare, Elon Musk. Each has a precise antithetic thought astir what it means to springiness back.

Gates plans to ramp up his foundation's charitable giving to causes similar nationalist wellness and acquisition implicit the adjacent 2 decades, whereas Musk has utilized the White House DOGE office to astir halt the travel of US overseas assistance spending successful a blink and dismantle the US Agency for International Development, which helium has called a "criminal organization."

To beryllium sure, these billionaires person precise antithetic mandates — Musk to chopped authorities spending, and Gates to eradicate preventable diseases and walk down his immense fortune. But arsenic Gates opens up his wallet adjacent more, he's besides squaring disconnected with Musk. Gates is utilizing a prolonged roadworthy representation compared with Musk's move-fast-and-break-things tech ethos that had him vowing to chopped $2 trillion successful authorities spending by employing methods from a startup playbook.

"Tech innovation works erstwhile a caller widget disrupts the marketplace for the aged one," Michael Morris, a prof astatine the Columbia Business School, tells maine successful an email. "Development programs enactment champion erstwhile determination is continuity, steadiness, predictability, assurance." He says Gates' attack shows "maturity successful reasoning done the problem." That's a displacement from erstwhile Gates was considered a sometimes combative and arrogant person astatine Microsoft, adjacent if helium was heralded arsenic a superb innovator. The Gates Foundation has been criticized, too, for lacking transparency and for immoderate of its spending priorities. "These days Gates looks similar a sage compared to Musk and compared to the administration," Morris says.

Gates past week announced plans to unwind the Gates Foundation successful the adjacent 20 years, bringing the philanthropic effort to a adjacent sooner than expected. But alternatively of cutting spending, he's expanding it: The instauration plans to administer $9 cardinal successful 2026, and Gates hopes the instauration volition treble the $100 cardinal it has fixed distant since its founding successful 2000 and donate different $200 cardinal to nationalist wellness and acquisition causes by December 31, 2045.

Meanwhile, successful a substance of days DOGE pulled the rug retired from nether the USAID earlier this year. Funding was archetypal disrupted, starring to disorder and chaos, and present much than 80% of USAID's tens of billions of dollars successful contractual commitments person been cut. Organizations crossed the satellite that depended connected wealth from the US person been scrambling to effort to transportation retired their missions, which see providing exigency nutrient to malnourished kids and medicine for HIV prevention and treatment.

President Donald Trump acceptable Musk escaped to curtail the national government's spending and discarded via DOGE. In a determination that galore law scholars accidental went beyond the administration's authority by circumventing Congress, the medication focused connected slashing costs now, careless of the semipermanent interaction connected the world's astir susceptible people. Gates' program is different: It shortens the archetypal foundation's closure timeline with the intent of solving problems much rapidly and rendering itself obsolete.

Part of the stark opposition betwixt Musk and Gates stems from their antithetic approaches to "efficiency." With DOGE, Musk has embodied the chainsaw attack that tech startups worship — focusing connected being thin and doing much with little nether a founder-mode-style leader. That doesn't needfully construe good successful government: Management experts antecedently told maine they viewed DOGE's rollout arsenic "clumsy," "wrongheaded," and afloat of "political recklessness."

The Gates Foundation's thought of ratio is to supply humanitarian assistance by utilizing the data-driven mentality of the tech manufacture alongside expertise from organizations that enactment straight with radical successful need. When it comes to giving back, Fatema Sumar, an adjunct lecturer successful nationalist argumentation astatine Harvard Kennedy School, says Gates' effort "is a replicable exemplary of data-driven, country-aligned semipermanent philanthropy that others could follow, and truthful far, fewer do."

It's nary coincidence that the influx of backing comes arsenic governments propulsion back, and Gates paired his announcement with jabs astatine Musk. "He's the 1 who cut the USAID budget," Gates told The New York Times, saying Musk had enactment it "in the wood chipper." When the interviewer noted that Musk had attached himself to the Giving Pledge, a conception initiated by Gates and Warren Buffett 15 years agone to promote affluent radical to donate the bulk of their assets to charity, Gates said: "The Giving Pledge — an antithetic facet of it that you tin hold until you dice and inactive fulfill it. So who knows? He could spell connected to beryllium a large philanthropist. In the meantime, the world's richest antheral has been progressive successful the deaths of the world's poorest children."

The 2 person been feuding implicit philanthropy for years. Walter Isaacson wrote successful his biography of Musk that Gates visited Musk successful 2022 and tried to person him to springiness distant much of his money. Musk told Gates that astir philanthropy was "bullshit," and that Gates could bash much for the clime if helium invested successful Tesla stock, which Gates had shorted. Musk aboriginal told Isaacson that Gates was "categorically insane."

Over the past 25 years, wealth from the Gates Foundation has helped trim the dispersed of preventable diseases, including HIV and tuberculosis, worldwide. The instauration estimates it has saved 82 cardinal lives. DOGE's imaginativeness is 1 successful which the problems of different countries don't autumn connected the shoulders of the US. Researchers from Boston University estimated that tens of thousands of radical whitethorn person already died from tuberculosis oregon AIDS since USAID backing was disrupted. Gates' luck allows him to capable gaps near down by the US government. "Much similar Harvard's endowment empowers them to combat backmost connected the onslaught connected universities, Gates' endowment enables him to measurement successful and supply immoderate needed services that USAID had been providing," Morris says.

More wealth present alternatively than aboriginal is simply a much ambitious approach. Gates described to the Times however AI tools volition bolster the foundation's goals to amended healthcare, education, and agriculture. "Given that I person these resources, what tin we achieve? It makes a large quality to instrumentality the wealth and walk it present versus later," helium said.

A period ago, the world's richest men gave commencement to modern philanthropy by mounting up charitable foundations that inactive exist, including the Rockefeller Foundation and 2 twelve organizations that carnivore Andrew Carnegie's name. Today's tech billionaires, the modern equivalent of the industrialist titans, person the accidental to marque an adjacent bigger impact, acknowledgment to accelerated advances successful medicine and exertion — but fewer have. Gates himself has said that his instauration can't presume the philanthropic responsibilities of governments alone.

"Gates, similar Carnegie and Rockefeller a period ago, defines an era," Sumar says. "But today's tech giants haven't matched yet his planetary ambition, and the satellite can't spend much radical connected the sidelines close now."

Amanda Hoover is simply a elder analogous astatine Business Insider covering the tech industry. She writes astir the biggest tech companies and trends.

Business Insider's Discourse stories supply perspectives connected the day's astir pressing issues, informed by analysis, reporting, and expertise.

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