“The richest man in the world is involved in the deaths of the world’s poorest children,” Bill Gates criticized.

In an interview with the New York Times (NYT), Microsoft founder Bill Gates harshly criticized Elon Musk’s role in the US’s cuts to foreign aid, saying they were “shocking” and caused many children to die.

Specifically, Elon Musk’s role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in cutting projects of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), even moving to close this agency, was heavily criticized by Bill Gates.

“The USAID cuts are staggering. I thought there would be a 20 percent cut. Instead, they cut 80 percent. And yeah, I didn’t expect that,” Bill Gates told the NYT.

“He (Elon Musk) is the one who cut the USAID budget. He put it in a wood chipper… The richest man in the world is involved in the death of the poorest children in the world,” the Microsoft founder continued to criticize.

Billionaire Bill Gates even mentioned that many people mistakenly thought that the US sent condoms to Gaza through foreign aid and criticized USAID projects. In fact, this was a US project to provide contraceptives to a province in Mozambique, Africa.

“They cut money to ‘Gaza province’ in Mozambique. It’s actually money to buy birth control pills so HIV-infected mothers don’t pass it on to their children. But the people who made the cuts are geographically blind, they think it’s Gaza and condoms. Will they go to the HIV-infected children and explain the aid cuts? Probably not,” Bill Gates said.

The Microsoft founder said the world has successfully reduced the number of children dying each year from 10 million to 5 million in 25 years and can completely reduce it by half again if there is cooperation between countries.

It’s worth noting that the Gates Foundation has invested heavily in public health initiatives around the world, often focusing on childhood diseases.

So it is not surprising that Bill Gates criticized DOGE’s budget cuts and move to close USAID.

This is not the first time Bill Gates and Elon Musk have criticized each other.

Bill Gates previously bet that Tesla’s stock price would fall. Immediately, Elon Musk angrily posted an unflattering photo of Gates on Twitter-X with criticism.

“When Elon Musk heard that I was shorting Tesla, he was extremely rude to me. But Elon Musk is rude to so many people that you can’t take it personally,” Bill Gates told Elon Musk’s biographer Walter Isaacson.

Similarly, the Microsoft founder has argued that Elon Musk has destabilized foreign politics by supporting right-wing causes in the UK and Germany. Bill Gates has also said that while he believes Tesla is having a positive impact on the environment, he wishes Musk would be more vocal about the climate crisis.

In contrast, the world’s richest billionaire Elon Musk mocked Bill Gates for having “limited understanding” of artificial intelligence.

Throughout his career, Elon Musk has shown a penchant for revenge against a long list of individuals whom the billionaire has sued through the courts as well as criticized on Twitter-X with 200 million followers.

“Sometimes I think my enemy list is too short. There are a large number of enemies on my list, although I don’t want to add names to this list but have no other choice,” Elon Musk once posted publicly on Twitter-X.

Elon Musk, DOGE, and Tesla have yet to comment.