Bill Gates has converted to electric cars and now drives a Fiat 500e RED, given to him by U2 singer Bono. The model is part of a charitable initiative to fund the fight against AIDS and COVID. In an interview with CBS, Gates spoke of his long friendship with Bono, and their joint commitment to funding global health projects. In fact, Gates and Bono’s philanthropic initiative calls for a portion of the proceeds from car sales to go to the Global Fund, an independent charitable foundation established in 2002 in Geneva. This was established as a partnership between governments, the public and the private sector with the goal of eliminating epidemics and supporting, through a financial mechanism, prevention, treatment, counseling, testing, education and care services for communities most in need. During the conversation, Gates recalled incidents related to his passion for speeding, including three speeding tickets in one trip while driving from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Seattle.
During the interview, Gates talked about his transition from Microsoft CEO to philanthropy and collaboration with U2’s frontman, and in particular the moment when he realized how important it was to fight poverty and social inequality. “I learned it the hard way,” Gates added. “When Microsoft wanted to license U2’s song ‘Beautiful Day’ for an advertising campaign, I joined a phone call in an attempt to convince the band to take the deal. They simply weren’t interested. I admired their commitment.” Then Gates added, ‘Well, we’ve been working together on global health for a long time,” remarking that the car is ”pretty cool.”
