Melinda Gates criticizes Elon Musk-led DOGE cuts: ‘Let's be honest…’

Melinda French Gates recently expressed concerns about federal cuts made by Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). According to a report by Street, Gates warned that cuts to programs like USAID could severely affect families around the world. She said “The cuts of things like USAID are absolutely devastating for families all over the world. Let's be honest: 16 million women will not have access to maternal health services because of these cuts”.
Melinda, who has generally avoided speaking against any government, said that while philanthropists can take risks that governments can't.
"Everything that philanthropy does is…we take risks where a government can't with taxpayer money and shouldn't. But then, once we know something works, it's really up to the government to scale it up. So to see that women won't have health services or there'll be 17 million more cases of malaria next year, it's almost unimaginable to me," she added.
Furthermore, Gates’ emphasised on the role of government funding to “scale things up”. She stated:
"If you really want to affect children's lives around the world and get vaccines out, that takes enormous government funding. Philanthropy cannot do it on its own. If you want to affect maternal health around the world, you really have to have philanthropy, again, taking on the experiments, trying things, figuring out what works, doing the research, but then it really takes government funding to scale those things up".

Last month, Gates appeared on the Scott Galloway’s podcast recently where she spoke about how Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ former wife, MacKenzie Scott and Tesla CEO Elon Musk have questioned her charitable work. During the podcast, she said “I’m in the arena doing the work,” stating she is more focused on making a meaningful impact rather than engaging in debates.
For those unaware, Musk in June 2024 said that French Gates’ political activities could be “the downfall of western civilization”. The Tesla CEO was replying to a post by conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair who then wrote “I am once again asking for the scorned billionaire wife to Democrat activist pipeline to be studied. Melinda Gates is about to spend so much divorce money on getting Joe Biden elected”.