Bill Gates’ daughter reveals she lost friends over conspiracy theories about her billionaire father.
Phoebe Gates, 22, the youngest daughter of Bill and Melinda French Gates, made the shocking claim while speaking out about the spread of misinformation in the new Netflix documentary series What’s Next? The Future With Bill Gates, which premiered Wednesday.
As the conversation between her and her father continued, the billionaire Microsoft co-founder asked his daughter if she had ever come across conspiracy theories about him, including that the COVID pandemic was a ploy to allow Bill Gates to put microchips in vaccines that would allow him to track people.
“All the time,” Phoebe replied. “I’ve even had friends stop talking to me because of these vaccine rumors,” she said.
Phoebe Gates, 22, admitted she has lost friends over conspiracy theories about her father
The 22-year-old reproductive rights activist recently graduated from Stanford University with a degree in human biology and was invited to her father’s program when she was finishing her senior year.
She said at the time that she was concerned about the ability to effectively communicate accurate health information as misinformation spreads online.
“I have to learn more,” admits his father, 68, “because I naively still believe that digital communication can be a force that unites us and allows us to have a reasonable debate.”
But Phoebe said her father doesn’t realize that facts and logic aren’t as important to people on social media as finding an escape from everyday life.
A popular conspiracy theory is that the COVID pandemic was a ploy to allow Bill Gates to put microchips in vaccines that would allow him to track people.
At that point, Gates asked his daughter where she thinks conspiracy theories come from, to which she replied that they come from a place of fear.
During COVID lockdowns, she explained, no one knew who to trust or what to believe.
“The pandemic was definitely the worst thing about social media, oversimplifying things,” Gates agreed.
The two also discussed women’s reproductive rights and gender equality, two topics Phoebe is passionate about.
Gates later admitted that the conversation with his daughter was his “favorite” part of the show.
Gates later wrote that the conversation with his daughter was his “favorite” part of the show, calling it “the highlight of the series.”
He wrote on his blog Gates Notes that Phoebe “shared with me specific examples of how bad actors use misinformation and disinformation to disrupt progress.”
In doing so, she said, ‘Phoebe helped me better understand how women online, particularly women who stand up for other women, often face threats to their safety that are intended to make them think twice before speaking up.
“I’m not exactly a stranger to people being mean to me online, but I have the luxury of (mostly) ignoring what’s being said about me,” the billionaire admitted.
‘Phoebe explained how these threats can have a chilling effect on women’s rights activism and shared some thoughtful insights on how to make the internet a safer place for everyone.’
