Washington, United:

American philanthropist Melinda French Gates, the ex-wife of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, endorsed President Joe Biden on Thursday for November’s US election, arguing that he is the best candidate for women.

“I’ve never endorsed a presidential candidate before. But this year’s election stands to be so enormously consequential for women and families that, this time, I can’t stay quiet,” she said on X.

“Women deserve a leader who cares about the issues they face and is committed to protecting their safety, their health, their economic power, their reproductive rights, and their ability to freely and fully participate in a functioning democracy.”

French Gates, who recently stepped down as president of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said the contrast between Biden and his Republican opponent Donald Trump “couldn’t be greater, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.” 

“I will be voting for President Biden,” she concluded.

Reproductive rights have been an effective political cudgel for Democrats in the two years since the conservative-leaning Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that made abortion a constitutionally protected right. 

A comfortable majority of Americans think abortion should be legal in most cases, according to extensive polling, and around half of states have measures in place to protect access.

The issue has been a major theme of the election campaign, with Biden supporting women’s right to choose and Trump failing to stake out a clear-cut position beyond pride in appointing three of the justices who struck down Roe v Wade.

French Gates announced in May that she would be using her $12.5 billion fortune to help “women and families,” making a first payment of $1 billion  toward the cause. 

She said the Supreme Court ruling on abortion had prompted her to devote herself to defending women’s rights.

Former New York mayor and businessman Mike Bloomberg also said on Thursday he was endorsing Biden and had donated $19 million to his campaign, according to the Washington Post.

Trump, meanwhile, received high-profile support from investor twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who announced they had each donated $1 million toward the Republican candidate’s election bid.

And businessman Timothy Mellon contributed $50 million to a Trump-supporting super PAC — an organization that pools campaign contributions, according to a New York Times report on Thursday.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

Melinda French Gates recently opened up about her divorce from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

Speaking to TIME magazine, Ms Gates revealed she initially separated from him before ultimately deciding to proceed with the divorce in 2021.

Melinda Gates talked about being able to navigate this process privately, especially while balancing responsibilities like caring for their children. In her words, “To be able to do that in private while I’m still trying to take care of the kids, while still making certain decisions about how you’re going to disentangle your life – thank God.”

Melinda French Gates described her divorce as an “awful” and “horrible thing”. However, “it has been wonderful” since then, she said. “I live in a neighbourhood. Now, I can walk to little stores. I can walk to the drugstore, I can walk to a restaurant,” adding that she “absolutely loves it”.

The divorce, finalised in August 2021 after 27 years of marriage, led her to step away from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, an organisation synonymous with global impact and philanthropy.

“I thought a lot about my three children. But I certainly thought about the effect on the foundation. Those are the three biggest buckets: me, the kids, and the foundation. And I wanted to make sure that when we came through it to the other side – all of those pieces were intact,” Melinda French Gates shared during the interview.

Following her exit from the foundation, Ms Gates redirected her efforts towards new initiatives aimed at empowering women on a global scale. She recently announced a billion-dollar funding initiative designed to promote women’s rights and economic empowerment.

Regarding Bill Gates’ association with Jeffrey Epstein, Ms Gates said she did not like that he would meet the sex offender. “I made that clear to him. I also met Jeffrey Epstein exactly one time. I wanted to see who this man was and I regretted it from the second I stepped in the door,” she said.

Melinda French Gates. File photo
| Photo Credit: AP

Melinda French Gates will step down as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the nonprofit she and her ex-husband Bill Gates founded and built into one of the world’s largest philanthropic organizations over the past 20 years.

“This is not a decision I came to lightly,” French Gates posted on the X platform on Monday. “I am immensely proud of the foundation that Bill and I built together and of the extraordinary work it is doing to address inequities around the world.”

She praised the foundation’s CEO, Mark Suzman, and the foundation’s board of trustees, which was significantly expanded after the couple announced their divorce in May 2021.

“The time is right for me to move forward into the next chapter of my philanthropy,” French Gates wrote in her statement. She already organizes some of her investments and philanthropic gifts through her organisation, Pivotal Ventures, which is not a nonprofit.

Future work focus on women and families

Gates thanked French Gates for her “critical” contributions to the foundation in a statement, saying, “I am sorry to see her leave, but I am sure she will have a huge impact in her future philanthropic work.”

The foundation will change its name to the Gates Foundation, a spokesperson said.

French Gates will receive $12.5 billion as part of her agreement with Mr. Gates, which she said would commit to future work focused on women and families. The foundation said that Gates would supply those funds personally, not from the foundation’s endowment.

The Gates Foundation is a massive funder of global health, supporting major international institutions like Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the World Health Organization and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. It also funds research into a wide range of topics like child malnutrition and maternal health as well as eradicating polio and treating and preventing malaria. The foundation has also donated billions to help small farmers adapt to climate change.

In the U.S., it funded education policy and research that had sweeping, if mixed, effects, and now, has pledged to increase its support around antipoverty initiatives.

“The announcement is a surprise for many of us, but I don’t think it’s spur of the moment,” said Latanya Mapp, president and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

French Gates has already helped cement a gender equity lens within the Gates Foundation’s programs to ensure it continues on past her departure, Mapp said. The first president of the foundation’s gender equity division was hired in 2020.

When French Gates officially resigns June 7, Bill Gates will be the sole chair of the foundation’s board, though Suzman, as CEO, has taken on a higher profile role in the past three years. For example, he began writing the foundation’s annual letter outlining its priorities in 2022.

Linsey McGoey, a professor of sociology at the University of Essex and author of “No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy,” said French Gates’ departure again raises the question of whether power over the foundation should be more widely distributed.

“Should there be more than a tight nucleus of people in charge?” asked McGoey, adding that the foundation controls a great deal of funding that affects people who lack “a democratic pathway” to contest how it’s used.

In an emailed statement, the foundation said that Suzman announced French Gates’ decision to employees on Monday.

“After a difficult few years watching women’s rights rolled back in the U.S. and around the world, she wants to use this next chapter to focus specifically on altering that trajectory,” Suzman said of French Gates.

Mr. Suzman said he knew many had joined the foundation in part because of their admiration for her advocacy, especially around gender equity.

“I know how beloved Melinda is here,” Mr. Suzman wrote.

The Gates Foundation holds $75.2 billion in its endowment as of December 2023, and announced in January, it planned to spend $8.6 billion through the course of its work in 2024.