"I've paid over $10 billion in taxes. I've paid more than anyone in taxes. If I had to pay $20 billion, it's fine."
"But when you say I should pay $100 billion, then I'm starting to do a little math over what I have left over."
"I'm not sure how open minded she is -- or that she'd even be willing to sit down with somebody who has large amounts of money."
He says he'd vote for whoever has the "more professional approach" to the presidency, even if he disagrees with them.
"I hope the more professional candidate is an electable candidate."
"Maybe I'm just too biased to think that if you create a company that's super valuable, that at least some part of that you should be able to have -- a little bit for consumption, and the balance to do philanthropic things."
"I choose not to participate in large political donations. There are times it might feel tempting to do so. And there are other people who choose to do so. But I just don't want to grab that gigantic mega-phone."
"I made a mistake in judgment that I thought that those discussions would lead, literally, to billions of dollars to global health."
"And I gave him some benefit by the association. So I made a doubly wrong mistake there."
"I feel bad: We probably will at some point accept someone into the Giving Pledge and it will turn out that their fortune is a disreputable fortune."
But he also says that corporations should not be fact-checking political ads.
"No private company can or should make those judgments."
Bill Gates: "No."
Sorkin: "Your neigbor in Seattle likes space."
Gates: "He can have it."
Billionaires joking who can "have" space.
He's for a higher estate tax and says more tax revenue needed.
But he calls for a "middle ground" and says he worries about ~~too~~ high taxes.
"You really want the incentive system to be there, and you can go a long ways without threatening that."
— Meeting with Elizabeth Warren
— Meeting with Jeffrey Epstein
— Taxing billionaire philanthropy
— Wealth taxes
vox.com/recode/2019/11…
vox.com/recode/2019/11…
And who is to say that some of the current, American singers of the Giving Pledge aren’t corrupt?
vox.com/recode/2019/11…
Gates supports:
— Reinstating the higher estate tax
— Taxing capital at the same rate as labor
— Major philanthropic giving today from billionaires
Many billionaires support none of these.
Easy to bash Gates since he is the billionaire you know, but it is mostly an anonymous group of billionaires that are more responsible for income inequality.
vox.com/future-perfect…
vox.com/platform/amp/f…