(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The New York Times reported Monday that the Gates Foundation is defunding a vast network of non-profit groups associated with the Democratic Party as billionaire Bill Gates apparently looks to stay on good terms with President Donald Trump.
According to the Times, the Gates Foundation said in June that it’s not making any more grants to the consulting firm Arabella Advisors, which has long funded pro-Democrat groups. The Gates Foundation has reportedly pledged some $450 million to Arabella-associated groups over the last 16 years.
“The Gates Foundation said it would not make new investments with ‘Arabella-related entities,’ including a consulting firm bought by Arabella in 2023 called the Redstone Group. The foundation said it would not extend existing grants and would even try to ‘pursue early exits’ from a few long-term investments,” the Times reported.
According to the Times, Arabella disperses much of its money to Democrats through the New Venture Fund, which is a fiscal sponsor for 170 nonprofit projects. The New Venture Fund, in turn, sends much of that cash to a dark-money group called the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which has donated $97 million to Democratic super PACs, the Times reported.
Gates did make a secretive $50 million donation to support Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential run last year. But after Trump’s victory in November, he’s changed his tune.
The Microsoft co-founder told the Wall Street Journal in January that he recently spoke with Trump about global health challenges, and came away from the meeting impressed.
“I had a chance, about two weeks ago, to go have a long and actually quite intriguing dinner with him,” Gates said during an interview with Journal Editor in Chief Emma Tucker.
“I felt like he was energized and looking forward to helping to drive innovation,” Gates reportedly said. “I was frankly impressed with how well he showed a lot of interest in the issues I brought up.”
While Trump and Gates may seem like an unlikely duo, they do have something in common: Much to the chagrin of MAGA diehards, they’re both in favor of the experimental COVID-19 vaccine. Gates spoke about that to the Journal.
“He, in the Covid days, accelerated the vaccine innovation,” Gates reportedly said. “So I was asking him if maybe the same kind of thing could be done here, and we both got, I think, pretty excited about that.”
Gates was referring to the Trump administration’s controversial Operation Warp Speed, which fast-tracked the development of the COVID-19 vaccine. Critics, including the nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services, have argued that the MNRA shots produced by Warp Speed have had massive health side effects—while failing to stop the spread of COVID.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
