There are many problems that billionaire tech mogul Bill Gates hopes to help solve: polio eradication, water sanitation, and agricultural development, to name a few. But one frontier he worries will be passed on to future generations is misinformation.
Misinformation is a problem, the Microsoft co-founder said, that “we’re giving to the younger generation.”
Speaking on CNBC Make It, Gates, worth $118 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, said he was naive to assume that “when we put information out there, people would want accurate information.”
A high-profile figure himself, Gates saw control extended to his family. Phoebe’s daughter, in particular, struggled with being bullied online.
“Hearing my daughter talk about how she’s been bullied online and how her friends have experienced it quite a bit brought it into focus in a way I hadn’t thought about before,” Gates, a father of three, continued.
Gates’ youngest daughter – co-founder of AI shopping tool Phia – has previously spoken out about misconceptions about her family and relationships, including being “memed to be in an interracial relationship”.
An internet meme is an image or video, usually intended to be humorous, that is spread online.
Despite the fact that it is aware of how misinformation spreads online, Gates said he can understand why certain audiences flock to platforms that reflect their opinions – a phenomenon known as confirmation bias.
“We have a context where we want accurate information, such as, hopefully, when we want medical advice,” Gates said. “But then we like, in a way, in our community and enclave, to have these shared views that unite us.”
He explained: “Even I’m going to cringe. Let’s say there’s a politician I don’t like and there’s an article online that criticizes him a little bit. I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s such a good critique, [and] I enjoyed reading it, even if it was exaggerated.'”
Artificial intelligence could help reduce misinformation
Gates’ probing questions about how to control the spread of misinformation online may be at odds with fellow billionaire Elon Musk.
Gates said in the interview: “We should have free speech. But if you incite violence, if you get people to not take vaccines, where are those boundaries? Even the US should have rules, and then if you have rules, what is it? Is it an artificial intelligence that encodes those rules? You have billions of activity and if you catch it one day later, the damage is done.”
This isn’t the first time Gates has proposed the emerging technology as a tool against disinformation and deepfakes (images and videos that are incredibly realistic but aren’t authentic).
In a post on his blog, GatesNotes, in July 2023, the co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation wrote: “This will be a cyclical process: someone finds a way to detect fakes, someone else figures out how to counter it, someone else develops countermeasures, and so on.
“It won’t be a perfect success, but we won’t be powerless either.”
Elon Musk’s opinion on freedom of speech
Musk, the Tesla CEO and owner of X — the platform formerly known as Twitter — is a free-speech absolutist who is unlikely to appreciate the notion of rules being applied to what he or others can say.
Musk believes free speech is the “foundational pillar of democracy” and has vowed to fight the apparent censorship of his platform.
That said, a debate over how to control disinformation wouldn’t be the first time Musk and Gates’ views have been at odds. In July 2024, for example, Musk threatened that Gates would be “wiped out” for apparently holding a bear position on Tesla stock. wealth could not confirm whether Gates still holds a short position in the electric vehicle maker.
Gates also said his management style is better than that of Musk – a boss he believes can push “too hard”. Meanwhile, Musk claimed that Gates doesn’t understand artificial intelligence, saying his understanding of the subject is “limited.”
More recently, the tech titans have clashed over Musk’s work at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). In January 2025, Gates said he hoped some of the foreign aid and staff cuts enacted by DOGE would be reversed: “Elon I think said, ‘Yeah, we made a mistake, we overbalanced those people, so… can he continue to save tens of millions of lives?’ Gates also accused Musk of “crazy” political interference in 2025.
In November, Musk reignited bad blood between the pair, writing on X that if Gates hadn’t closed his alleged “crazy short position” against Tesla, he “had better do it soon.”
It seems that misinformation may be just another topic of many that billionaires will have to agree to disagree on.
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Bill Gates asks Congress to ‘show its values’ on foreign aid, or this year will see child deaths rise instead of fall
A version of this article was first published on September 5, 2024.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com