|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... |
Bill Gates: Biography, Microsoft, the Gates Foundation, Controversies and Legacy
Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft, helped bring the personal computer into homes and offices around the world, and then spent the second half of his working life leading one of the largest private philanthropies in history. At 70, he is a central figure in debates over global health, climate technology and artificial intelligence. He is also a figure whose reputation has been tested by antitrust litigation in the 1990s, a high-profile divorce in 2021, and, in 2026, scrutiny over his past contact with Jeffrey Epstein. This biography covers his life from a Seattle childhood to October 2026, when he was publicly warning about AI-powered cyberattacks.
Quick Facts
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full name | William Henry Gates III |
| Born | October 28, 1955, Seattle, Washington |
| Known for | Co-founding Microsoft (1975); chairing the Gates Foundation |
| Education | Lakeside School; attended Harvard University and left in 1975 |
| Family | Three children with Melinda French Gates; the couple divorced in 2021 |
| Philanthropy | Foundation plans to spend more than $200 billion and close on December 31, 2045 |
| Net worth | Forbes listed him at about $112.6 billion in May 2025; no verified current figure is used here |
Early Life and Education
William Henry Gates III was born in Seattle in 1955 to William H. Gates Sr., a prominent attorney, and Mary Maxwell Gates, a teacher and community leader. He grew up in a comfortable, high-achieving household and attended Lakeside School, a private school that gave students unusual access to a computer terminal in the late 1960s. There he met Paul Allen, two years his senior, and the two spent hours programming. The friendship became the basis of Microsoft.
Gates enrolled at Harvard University in 1973. He did not finish. In 1975, after Allen showed him a magazine cover about the Altair 8800 microcomputer, the two wrote a version of the BASIC programming language for it. Gates left Harvard to start a company, which they named Microsoft, in April 1975 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Building Microsoft
The company moved to the Seattle area in 1979. Its decisive break came in 1980 and 1981, when IBM needed an operating system for its first personal computer. Microsoft licensed, rather than sold, the operating system that became MS-DOS, and it kept the right to license it to other manufacturers. As IBM-compatible computers multiplied, Microsoft’s software became the standard. Windows launched in 1985, the company went public in 1986, and Gates became a billionaire at 31. Windows 95 and Microsoft Office then cemented the company’s position.
Gates was Microsoft’s chief executive until January 2000, when Steve Ballmer took over and Gates became chief software architect. He reduced his daily work at the company in 2008, served as chairman until 2014, and left the board in March 2020 to concentrate on philanthropy.
Antitrust and Competitive Reputation
The company’s dominance led to a landmark antitrust case. The U.S. government sued Microsoft in 1998, arguing that it had used its monopoly in operating systems to crush competitors, notably Netscape’s web browser. A federal judge ruled against Microsoft in 2000 and ordered a breakup, but an appeals court overturned the breakup remedy in 2001 and the case ended in a settlement. Gates’s combative deposition performance became part of his public image of the era. The case shaped later regulation of technology companies, and Microsoft’s own later strategy shifted toward cloud computing and enterprise software.
Marriage, Family and Divorce
Gates married Melinda French on January 1, 1994, in Hawaii. They have three children, Jennifer, Rory and Phoebe. In May 2021 the couple announced they were ending their marriage after 27 years. The divorce was finalized that summer. Melinda French Gates left the Gates Foundation in 2024 and now works through her own organization, Pivotal. After the Epstein documents were released in 2026, she said her former husband had to “answer to those things,” according to the Associated Press.
Philanthropy and the Gates Foundation
The Gates family began its philanthropy in the 1990s and merged its efforts into the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000, the year Gates stepped down as Microsoft’s CEO. Over time the foundation became a leading funder of vaccines, polio eradication, malaria research, maternal and child health, agricultural development and public education. Warren Buffett pledged much of his fortune to the foundation in 2006, and Gates and Buffett launched the Giving Pledge in 2010 to encourage other billionaires to donate most of their wealth.
In May 2025, Gates announced that the foundation would spend more than $200 billion over 20 years and shut down on December 31, 2045. The original plan was to close 20 years after his death. Gates wrote that the first 25 years of the foundation had distributed more than $100 billion, and he said he was determined that “he died rich” would not be said of him. In 2026 the foundation set a record annual payout of $9 billion, according to Fortune.
Climate, Energy and Writing
Gates has also invested heavily in climate and energy technology through Breakthrough Energy, launched in 2015, and has backed the nuclear company TerraPower. He explained his thinking in How to Avoid a Climate Disaster (2021), and he wrote about pandemic preparedness in How to Prevent the Next Pandemic (2022). His earlier books include The Road Ahead (1995) and Business @ the Speed of Thought (1999). A memoir of his early years, Source Code, came out in 2025. He writes regularly on his Gates Notes blog.
The Epstein Files and 2026 Scrutiny
In late January 2026, the U.S. Justice Department released a large set of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Gates appeared in emails, calendar entries and photographs. As reporting on the files noted, a name or photograph in them does not by itself show wrongdoing, and much of the material consisted of Epstein’s own unverified drafts and correspondence about philanthropy. The Gates Foundation called allegations contained in some emails “absolutely absurd and completely false.”
Gates addressed the matter at a Gates Foundation town hall in February. The foundation said he spoke candidly and took responsibility for his actions, and Time reported that he apologized for his ties to Epstein and acknowledged two affairs with Russian women, which the emails alluded to. Gates withdrew from an India AI summit that month. In April, foundation chief executive Mark Suzman commissioned an external review by the law firm WilmerHale. Its summary, released in July, found no evidence that the foundation paid Epstein, took part in or knew of his crimes, or knew he was using the foundation’s name to burnish his reputation. The same review found that foundation staff had repeatedly warned Gates and other leaders about the risks of associating with a convicted sex offender, and the Daily Beast criticized a gap in the scope of the review. The foundation said it expressed regret for the interactions that did occur.
Recent Work on Artificial Intelligence
In the fall of 2026, Gates became a prominent voice on AI regulation. In a September 27 appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, he said that no one believes self-regulation is enough, according to NBC’s transcript, and he warned that AI could eliminate jobs faster than it creates them. On October 11, he told CNN’s Jake Tapper that the most dramatic AI-related risk over the next year would be cyberattacks, including extortion and attempts to manipulate markets, and that the nearer-term danger is people using AI tools with the safeguards removed. He said loss of human control over AI is years away from major impact. He called for oversight comparable to the way governments regulate planes, cars and medicines, and said he hoped to speak with President Trump about it. Another outlet reported that he had also published an essay proposing taxes on AI tokens and robots, but I could not confirm the essay’s details.
Legacy
Gates’s legacy has three distinct parts. In technology, he helped build the software industry that made personal computing universal. In philanthropy, his foundation has influenced public health priorities across much of the developing world and has committed to spending itself out of existence. In public life, his record is mixed: critics point to Microsoft’s aggressive tactics, to questions about the influence of a single billionaire donor over global health policy, and to the Epstein association, while admirers point to measurable health gains tied to vaccines and disease programs. The next two decades, as the foundation spends its remaining endowment and AI reshapes the economy, will shape how that record is judged.
Conclusion
Bill Gates is among the few people whose careers span the founding of a defining technology company and the management of a defining philanthropy. His second career, which he chose to make shorter and more intense by closing the foundation in 2045, is now overlapping with a period of reputational strain and with a technological shift he has described as the most dangerous technology humans ever invented. Whether his voice on AI carries the weight his earlier work on health did will depend on how the public weighs his accomplishments against his errors of judgment.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Bill Gates?
Bill Gates is an American businessman, software pioneer and philanthropist. He co-founded Microsoft with Paul Allen in 1975, led it as CEO until 2000, and went on to chair the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the world’s largest private charities. He was born in Seattle on October 28, 1955.
How did Bill Gates become rich?
His wealth came mainly from his Microsoft shares. The company licensed its MS-DOS operating system to IBM and other computer makers, then built Windows and Office into products used on most personal computers. Microsoft went public in 1986, and Gates became a billionaire in his early thirties. Forbes listed his net worth at about $112.6 billion in May 2025.
Did Bill Gates graduate from Harvard?
No. He enrolled in 1973 and left in 1975 to start Microsoft with Paul Allen. He has later been honored by universities, but he did not complete a Harvard degree.
What is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation doing now?
The foundation is spending more than $200 billion over 20 years and is scheduled to close on December 31, 2045. It focuses on global health, including vaccines, polio and malaria, along with poverty reduction, women’s health and, increasingly, AI-related education. Melinda French Gates left in 2024, and Bill Gates remains chair, with Mark Suzman as chief executive.
Why did Bill and Melinda Gates divorce?
They announced their separation in May 2021 after 27 years of marriage and said they no longer believed they could grow together. They did not publicly give a detailed reason, and nothing in the sources reviewed for this article establishes one. Melinda French Gates has since built her own philanthropic work.
What is Bill Gates’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein?
The Justice Department’s 2026 release of Epstein files included emails, calendar entries and photographs involving Gates, and showed contacts about philanthropic projects. Gates apologized at a Gates Foundation town hall in February 2026, and an external review by WilmerHale found no evidence the foundation took part in or knew of Epstein’s crimes. Appearing in the files does not by itself indicate wrongdoing, and some claims in Epstein’s self-written drafts were denied by the foundation.
What is Bill Gates saying about artificial intelligence?
In October 2026 he warned that AI-driven cyberattacks are the most immediate threat, that self-regulation by tech companies is not enough, and that governments should regulate AI the way they regulate planes and medicines. He has also said AI could eliminate jobs faster than it creates them. He has said the loss of human control over AI remains years away from major impact.
What books has Bill Gates written?
His books include The Road Ahead (1995), Business @ the Speed of Thought (1999), How to Avoid a Climate Disaster (2021), How to Prevent the Next Pandemic (2022) and the 2025 memoir Source Code. He also writes regularly on his Gates Notes blog.
