Bill Gates is making an eleventh-hour push for the U.S. to rethink its sweeping foreign aid cuts as the Trump administration moves to win congressional approval for its DOGE savings.
The billionaire philanthropist managed to pull off a visit to the White House under the radar on Friday, where he made the case with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to a report from Tara Palmeri’s The Red Letter.
Gates reportedly put the pressure on Rubio to reverse the DOGE cuts to foreign aid.
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His stop at the White House came as Trump and billionaire Elon Musk were in the middle of their very nasty public breakup on Friday.
Perhaps Gates saw his opening as the tech billionaire and former DOGE head blasted President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”, launching two of the world’s most powerful men into a social media spat where they hurled threats and accusations.
Gates himself is no stranger to criticizing the Tesla CEO and world’s richest person.
The Daily Beast reached out to Gates and the White House for comment.
While Musk and the president’s relationship may be over, Congress this week will move to codify the first DOGE cuts in a rescissions package sent to Capitol Hill by the White House.
Included in the roughly $9.4 billion DOGE cuts package that the House is scheduled to vote on this week are $8.3 billion cuts in foreign aid, including money for the U.S. Agency for International Development, which DOGE took a hatchet to earlier this year.
Among programs on the chopping block through USAID is the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has been a global leader in the effort to battle HIV and AIDS globally, saving 26 million lives around the world since it was launched in 2003.
While Musk and DOGE saw USAID and foreign aid as ripe for chopping, Democrats and international organizations warned that cutting U.S. foreign aid could lead to deaths and instability around the world.
Gates has been a vocal supporter of the AIDS relief program, including promoting it directly to the president in past meetings.
The billionaire Microsoft co-founder said in early February, as DOGE was going after USAID, that he pitched the importance of the PEPFAR program directly to Trump late last year.
Gates ratcheted up his own criticism of Musk last month for his DOGE efforts.
“The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one, Gates told the Financial Times.
He also said he would love to see Musk “go in and meet the children that have now been infected with HIV because he cut that money.”
In response to the Daily Beast inquiry, a spokesperson for the State Department said that Rubio’s position on cuts to foreign aid has not changed.
Rubio for months insisted that the State Department would continue to administer lifesaving aid, but Democrats have sounded alarms that it has not kept its word.
While Gates also makes his case to the Trump administration, last month he announced he would give away nearly all of his wealth, $200 billion through the Gates Foundation, to help save lives around the world over the next 20 years.
