Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft (MS), who supported Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the U.S. presidential election, recently noted that he was "impressed" by President-elect Donald Trump's interest in global health issues during a dinner meeting.
According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on the 17th (local time), Gates had dinner with President-elect Trump for three hours about two weeks ago at Mar-a-Lago, a Trump-owned resort in Florida. Gates said in an interview, "We had a long and interesting conversation with President-elect Trump on global health issues, and he showed a great deal of interest in related topics and displayed a passionate attitude, which impressed me."
Gates reported that various topics were discussed during the meeting, including efforts to develop HIV treatments, innovations in COVID-19 vaccines, and polio eradication. He mentioned, "I asked whether President-elect Trump could continue similar innovative efforts in this area, highlighting his acceleration of vaccine innovations during the COVID-19 pandemic, and I believe we were very passionate during this conversation."
Gates has been active in improving global health issues through his charity, the Gates Foundation, and expressed expectations that discussions with President-elect Trump could have a positive impact on these activities.
Also present at the dinner was Susie Wiles, President-elect Trump's close aide and nominee for White House Chief of Staff, but Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, reportedly did not attend.
Gates' visit to Mar-a-Lago occurred amid a series of meetings between CEOs of major U.S. corporations and President-elect Trump. Previously, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta; Tim Cook, CEO of Apple; Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google; Sergey Brin, Google co-founder; and Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, visited and met with Trump in succession.
Gates is reported to have contributed approximately $50 million (about 7.2 billion won) to the Democratic Super PAC "Future Forward" in support of Vice President Harris during last year's election. However, observations suggest that this dinner could increase the likelihood of Gates collaborating with President-elect Trump on policies and global health issues.