Bill Gates told the BBC he doesn’t think traveling to Mars is a good use of money. “You can buy measles vaccines and save lives for $1,000 per life saved,” Gates explained. He also said he thought Elon Musk had had a positive impact through Tesla, even if it wasn’t philanthropic. Something is loading.
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Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has said he’d rather pay for lifesaving vaccines than spend money to go to Mars, commenting on how his priorities differ from those of one of the other men. richest on earth.
Gates made the comments in a BBC interview published Thursday in which journalist Amol Rajan asked the billionaire if he would encourage Tesla founder Elon Musk to join the “megaphilanthropist club”, referring to Gates as Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos.
“Yeah, I think one day he’ll be a great philanthropist,” Gates said of Musk. “Obviously things like Tesla have a positive impact even without being a form of philanthropy. But at the end of the day, I don’t think – other than going to Mars a few times, which might cost a bit – I don’t think no. I don’t think he wants to spend it on himself.”
Gates added that he thinks Musk will eventually become a philanthropist “using his ingenuity.”
After a follow-up question from Rajan, Gates also said that in his opinion going to Mars was not a good use of money.
“It’s actually quite expensive to go to Mars,” he told the BBC. “You can buy measles vaccines and save lives for $1,000 per life saved, and so that motivates you, like, ‘Don’t go to Mars.'”
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the nonprofit organization founded by Gates and his ex-wife Melinda French-Gates, has invested billions of dollars in research, development and delivery of vaccines to the poorest countries in the world. world. The foundation says it has spent billions to eradicate polio worldwide, including expanding access to vaccines.
Gates, along with French-Gates and Buffett, also founded the Giving Pledge, through which some of the world’s richest people pledged to give away most of their wealth.
Musk, who is often ranked as the richest person in the world, also signed the pledge in 2012. Last year, Musk made a charitable donation of $5.7 billion in Tesla stock to the Musk Foundation, which he started with his brother, Kimball Musk, in 2002. The foundation has distributed about $160 million in 2022, according to .
Musk has previously said it’s hard to find “ways to donate money that really make a difference.” In 2021, a Vox report concluded that Musk had donated 0.05% of his fortune to charity.
Gates and Musk have publicly disagreed in the past, including over COVID-19, how to tackle climate change and space travel.
Musk and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.