Did Bill Gates say that "defunding USAID will bring about another mystery illness across the world. Millions will die" during a TV appearance in February 2025? No, that's not true: Gates did not say that in the clip posted on X with that assertion. Lead Stories watched the full segment of Gates' appearance and did not hear Gates say it. Searching an online news archive yielded zero instances of Gates quoted as saying it.
The claim appeared in a post on X (archived here) on February 4, 2025. The caption read:
🚨Bill Gates just issued an ALARMING WARNING!
⚠️ 'Defunding USAID will bring about another mystery illness across the world. MILLIONS WILL DIE.'
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Wed Feb 5 15:48:30 2025 UTC)
The post included a one-minute, 18-second video in which a host of the daytime TV show "The View" asked Gates for his take on Elon Musk's "political access and influence here in America right now." He responded as follows:
Well, Elon, his private sector work, you know, has been very innovative, really fantastic. Um, a lot of private sector people when they get into government, they don't take the time, necessarily, to see what the good work is or why it's structured the way it is. So, I'm a little worried, um, particularly with this USAID stuff. Um, my foundation partners with USAID on nutrition and, uh, getting vaccines out and, you know, there's incredible people, um, you know, they're not actually worms, uh, that work there. Uh, you know, so hopefully, we'll get some of that work, uh, back in shape. In fact, if we don't, you know, you could have, uh, literally millions of deaths. So, you know, today people think, you know, 'Wow, how much do we give these countries?' As you said, it's less than a percent. People think it's five percent, and it should be two percent. But it's actually under one percent.
Nowhere in this clip did Gates say the quote in the claim. According to ABC.com, with ABC being the home network of "The View," Gates was featured as a guest during their February 4, 2025, episode (archived here).
The full "The View" segment Gates was a part of can be found here (archived here) on the TV show's official YouTube channel. It was posted on February 4, 2025. Lead Stories watched the entirety of this segment and did not hear Gates say, "Defunding USAID will bring about another mystery illness across the world. Millions will die."
A search of keywords related to the claim on Google News did not yield any reports that would back up the claim (archived here).
Lead Stories reached out to Gates' publicist. The Gates Foundation responded to our inquiry with a statement saying, "... the claim is false. You can watch the full interview from The View to confirm ..."
