He's a complicated figure. He has done so much good as well. EVs in the US and reusable rockets owe a lot to him. OTOH, so does the cesspool that is X.
Bill Gates is still kickin'. There are credible independent estimates that his funding has saved tens of millions of lives that would've been lost to malaria, AIDS, and other diseases.
Effective altruism and other New Age garbage pseudo philosophy can't hold a candle to that.
And he's retired, so the money is no longer useful to him for maintaining control over the company he runs or expanding it, which is when it traditionally starts going to charities.
In my opinion, one of the things that most reveals a person's biases and worldview is which tech oligarchs they revere and which they loathe
To reveal my own bias / worldview, I loathe and detest Bill Gates in nearly every way and have done so for over three decades. I think he has had a massively negative impact on humanity, mainly by making the computer industry so shitty for 4+ decades but in other more controversial areas as well.
With Elon Musk, while perceiving a number of big faults in the man, I also acknowledge that he has helped advance some very beneficial technologies (like electric vehicles and battery storage). So I have a mixed opinion on him, while with Gates, he is almost all evil and has had a massive negative impact on the planet.
I'm conflicted on this one. Famously, Tesla's main revenue source for ages was selling green credits to other car makers. Presumably, if not for Tesla, these car makers would have had to do something else.
The way I see it, he converted his cars' greenness into other people's fumes. So not a net win after all.
