NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

President Donald Trump met with Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates at the White House on Monday, just days after releasing a budget proposal that would impose deep cuts on funding for many of the causes championed by the billionaire philanthropist.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the two spoke about their “shared commitment to finding and stopping disease outbreaks around the world.” Gates, who wrote an article saying cuts to foreign aid Trump proposed would make America “less safe,” didn’t speak to reporters afterward.

Gates, the richest man in the world with a net worth of more than $86 billion as of Friday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has spent much of his time in recent years promoting global development and health through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Sarah Logan, a spokeswoman for the the foundation, said in a statement after the meeting that the organization “has a long history of working with officials on both sides of the aisle to pursue shared priorities like global health and development and domestic education.”