Gates vows to give away fortune, blasts Musk

MICROSOFT co-founder Bill Gates announced yesterday an accelerated timeframe for giving away his fortune as he touted artificial intelligence (Al) as a game-changer to boost public health and save lives globally.

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Under a new timetable, the Gates Foundation will spend more than $200billion (R3.6trillion) over the next 20 years, shutting down in 2045. The organisation had originally planned to close 20 years after Gates’s death.

The announcement came as Gates took aim at another billionaire tech titan, Elon Musk.

The Tesla CEO pushed through draconian cuts to the US Agency for International Development because Musk “didn’t go to a party that weekend”, Gates told the New York Times in an apparent dig at Musk’s lifestyle.

Gates is listed as the 13th on the Forbes “real-time” billionaire list, with a net worth of $112.6bn. Musk is first with $383.2bn.

Gates, 69, published a chart showing his net worth plummeting 99% over the next 20 years in a blog post announcing the shift, describing a doubling of the pace of giving.

“People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that ‘he died rich’ will not be one of them,” Gates wrote.