this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2025
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Summary

Bill Gates criticized Elon Musk for his support of far-right politicians, including the UK’s Tommy Robinson and Germany’s AfD party, calling it "insane shit" and accusing Musk of destabilizing political systems.

Gates questioned Musk's focus on divisive politics while managing global businesses like Tesla and SpaceX.

Gates also expressed concern about wealthy individuals influencing foreign elections.

Musk has faced backlash for controversial actions, including a Nazi salute.

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[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 221 points 3 days ago (35 children)

I always forget Gates is one of the elite. Then I remember how ruthless and savage he was in the 80s.

Then I remember.

[–] ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 90 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (11 children)

80s, 90s, and a few years into early 2000s. Gates ruthlessness lasted decades, destroyed many businesses and lives, and is mostly whitewashed thanks to his philanthropic efforts and a few reddit amas and some secret santa participation

Not to mention the destruction he did to computing as a whole. The nightmare of proprietary bullshit is something that he did not architect but he pushed heavily and lobbied for constantly. He had the position to push for interoperability from an early stake in computing, to set the stage for computers to have a strong precedent to work together. Instead he and microsoft made every effort to work against open standards. They would adopt open standards and extend them with proprietary extensions to intentionally ruin them. A lot of what is infuriating about modern tech can be traced back to precedent that microsoft set at his direction

Reminder despite every donation he has made his net worth is higher now than it ever was and this has essentially always been the case. His philanthropy, while objectively good, is a measured pr effort that does not impact his overall obscene wealth and basically never has

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 44 points 3 days ago (7 children)

He's still pushing 'intellectual property' as part of his philanthropy. The creators of the Oxford vaccine wanted to open source it and give it away for free. Gates opposed that and he got his way (partly because of the influence of the Gates Foundation). The delays this caused probably killed millions of extra people in the Global South (not sure if anyone ever did the maths on this).

[–] labbbb2@thelemmy.club 0 points 2 days ago (3 children)

'Global South' sounds like some right-wing term. LMIC (low middle-income country) is better.

Apart from Australia and New Zealand, the Southern hemisphere houses pretty much just the poorest countries. Poverty also correlates strongly with average temperature, so it increases as you approach the Equator from either side (oil-rich Sultanates included, since the countries are rich but the people are still poor).

For what it's worth, many people here in Brazil use the phrase "global south" as a better alternative to "third world", an expression which no longer makes sense since the fall of the USSR, and I haven't ever seen anyone on the Left here be offended or bothered by it.

[–] 000999@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

The global south is a real thing, look it up.

As a matter of fact, the term replaces "third world" lol

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

It's a common term, used by the leftiest of lefty think tanks.

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