I have a theory about Bill Gates, once the world’s richest man.
Yes, he has a reputation as a testy genius who does not suffer fools lightly. He has other well-publicized demerits, as well, that do not need to be listed. Nevertheless, through the Gates Foundation, he is doing a great thing by spending down all the billions he made as a co-founder of Microsoft by initiating and sustaining targeted efforts to cure diseases and raise up some of the most impoverished people on the planet.
My theory is that he got his core values from his parents, Bill Sr. and Mary Gates, two Seattle legends in the legal community and in civic engagement who knew that philanthropy was all about giving, not getting something in return.
Unfortunately, the folks now in charge of Microsoft — as well as the people running two other Seattle-based companies, Amazon and T-Mobile — seem not to have learned that lesson.
The three companies joined other tech titans, such as Meta and Palantir, to contribute tens of millions of dollars to President Donald Trump’s self-glorifying, illegal scheme to build a grandiose ballroom to replace the White House East Wing, which was demolished when the president unilaterally brought in a wrecking crew to knock it down.
It should be noted that T-Mobile apologists insist their money was donated indirectly through the Trust for the National Mall. That only gets them off the hook if they stipulated that none of the money should go to Trump’s ballroom, which, I believe, they did not do.
Is this a case of really smart people at Microsoft, T-Mobile and Amazon unwittingly doing something really dumb? Did they somehow not know Trump had no authorization from Congress or any other entity to tear down part of the most historic home in America? Did they miss hearing Trump’s lies about the cost of the ballroom or his false claim that taxpayers would not end up footing a significant part of the bill for his vanity project?
No, I do not think they are that stupid. I think they did not care. The only thing that mattered to the local tech giants and their peers in Silicon Valley was gaining favor with the imperious, vengeful man in the Oval Office so that their access to lucrative federal contracts would not be endangered.
A Microsoft flack claimed the company’s donation was aimed to help “update a home built more than 200 years ago so that it can meet 21st century needs.”
Funny how no one saw that need before Trump. The president is either a visionary or a megalomaniac. I am quite sure it is the latter, and I am quite sure the people who run Microsoft and the other companies know that, too, even if their PR hacks do not.
Would Microsoft have supported Trump’s lawless desecration of the White House if Bill Gates were still in charge? I cannot say for certain, although I’d like to think not.
What I do know is that his parents would have put their money into something far more ethical and worthy and would not have expected to get a federal contract in return.
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