Bill Gates Accuses Elon Musk of Destroying Humanity, Demands His Imprisonment at ADX Florence

In a furious and unfiltered interview with the Financial Times on Thursday, Bill Gates launched his most damning attack yet on fellow billionaire Elon Musk, accusing him not just of policy missteps or business arrogance, but of actively participating in what Gates described as “the destruction of the world’s most vulnerable populations.” The founder of Microsoft did not hold back as he blamed the Tesla CEO, who now leads the controversial Department of Government Efficiency under the Trump administration, for gutting life-saving foreign aid programs and triggering a preventable humanitarian catastrophe.

In a stunning escalation of rhetoric, Gates called for Musk to be imprisoned in ADX Florence, the most secure federal prison in the United States, home to terrorists and mass murderers — a symbolic gesture that underscores the severity with which Gates views Musk’s recent actions.

The tension between the two titans of technology has simmered for years, with previous spats revolving around Tesla stock, climate philanthropy, and political ideology. But this time, the stakes are far greater.

According to Gates, Musk’s recent cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) — initiated through the Department of Government Efficiency — have already led to thousands of child deaths, and will likely result in millions more in the years to come. The billionaire philanthropist minced no words, stating flatly that Musk’s actions are “killing the world’s poorest children.” He added, “The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one.”

At the center of Gates’ outrage is Musk’s decision to label USAID a “criminal organization” in February and declare it was “time for it to die.” In line with the Trump administration’s aggressive foreign aid rollback, Musk’s DOGE proceeded to cut over 90% of USAID’s contracts, eliminate $60 billion in international assistance, and dismantle nearly the entire workforce of the agency, both domestic and overseas.

The consequences were immediate and devastating. Life-saving medical shipments remained stranded in warehouses, critical nutrition programs were shut down, and hospitals on the front lines of global health emergencies were defunded overnight.

One particularly jarring anecdote offered by Gates revealed that Musk personally canceled grants to a hospital in Gaza Province, Mozambique. The hospital had been a key site for preventing the mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Musk reportedly believed — mistakenly — that U.S. aid funds were being used to supply condoms to Hamas in Gaza in the Middle East.

“I’d love for him to go in and meet the children that have now been infected with HIV because he cut that money,” Gates fumed. The incident, in Gates’ eyes, epitomizes a dangerous mixture of ignorance, arrogance, and political recklessness.

Musk, as of Thursday afternoon, had not issued any public comment on the blistering attack. Yet, given the gravity of the accusations and their deeply personal nature, a response seems inevitable.

The two men have long disagreed on a variety of ideological fronts, but this latest escalation places Musk not just as a business or political adversary of Gates, but as someone Gates believes poses an existential threat to global health and human life itself.

Behind the headlines, the data paints a bleak picture. According to USAID’s own internal memos, the defunding of critical programs has already begun to spiral into full-blown catastrophe. It’s estimated that over 4,800 children have died since funding for the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was frozen in January.

Worse still, projections show that as many as 200,000 children will become paralyzed by polio annually, while over one million will go untreated for severe acute malnutrition. In Gates’ words, “the number of deaths will start going up for the first time in decades... millions more deaths because of the resources that were slashed.”

Adding to the weight of his remarks, Gates simultaneously announced a drastic acceleration of his own philanthropic timeline. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which had once been envisioned as a century-spanning institution, will now shut its doors by 2045.

In the two decades before its closure, however, it will double its spending on global health, development, and education — pledging over $200 billion to counteract, in part, what Gates clearly sees as Musk’s destructive legacy.

There’s an undeniable personal element in Gates’ fury. His feud with Musk has intensified in recent years, especially as Musk increasingly embraced far-right political rhetoric on social media, clashed with global institutions, and ridiculed traditional philanthropic approaches. In January, Gates described Musk’s global political ambitions as “insane shit,” dismissing the Tesla CEO’s attempts to inject far-right ideology into international policymaking as dangerous and delusional.

The latest USAID cuts appear to have been the breaking point for Gates, who now sees Musk as a rogue agent wielding governmental power with no accountability or moral compass.

What makes the moment all the more dramatic is Gates’ call for imprisonment — not just censure or investigation, but incarceration in ADX Florence, a prison built to contain the most dangerous criminals in American history. It is a statement loaded with symbolism: Musk, in Gates’ view, is not merely irresponsible but actively villainous, a threat to the stability of humanitarian infrastructure and the very lives of children in the poorest corners of the world.

By invoking ADX Florence, Gates aligns Musk with figures like Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, and Zacarias Moussaoui, the 9/11 conspirator — individuals who acted with radical intent and caused widespread human suffering.

The Trump administration, for its part, has stood by Musk’s actions. Since appointing him to head DOGE in January, Trump has praised Musk’s “visionary cost-cutting” and “bold reimagining of government.” Yet critics argue that what’s unfolding is not reform, but demolition. For all the talk of efficiency, the human cost is mounting by the day.

Aid groups are struggling to keep up with collapsing systems, and countries that once relied on American support now face epidemics, hunger, and the unraveling of years of progress.

In many ways, the feud between Gates and Musk has evolved into a clash of worldviews. Gates represents a belief in global cooperation, institutional support, and measured philanthropy. Musk, by contrast, seems to champion chaos as a method of innovation, disruption as a moral good, and governance as a stage for social media theatrics.

Their public disagreement is not just about USAID or foreign aid — it’s about the soul of modern leadership, the responsibilities of extreme wealth, and the consequences of ideological extremism when backed by power.

As the world reacts to Gates’ explosive accusations, attention now turns to Musk. Will he defend his decisions, double down on his denunciation of USAID, or attempt to reframe the narrative through another provocative post on X? For now, the silence is deafening.

But with millions of lives at stake and two of the world’s most powerful men locked in an ideological war, this story is far from over.