By virtue of the inherent exploitation it takes to become one, there’s ontologically no such thing as a good billionaire. To sort them along a spectrum of palatability is to miss the forest for the trees and a distraction from the fact that the continued existence of these roughly 3,500 billionaire sickos (and one almost certainly soon-to-be trillionaire sicko) presents an existential threat to the other nine billion humans they’re robbing, surveiling, and increasingly starting to hide from.
While you do not, under any circumstances, “gotta hand it to” billionaires, it doesn’t hurt to call out good behavior in the rare instances where they demonstrate it, if only to demand more of it. Take self-described “class traitor” billionaire and California gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer who, if (big “if”) he were to be elected and follow through on his campaign trail rhetoric, would aim to tax those like himself out of existence. Though it clearly pains many a left-leaning CA voter to regard a former hedge-fund manager who recently walked back his support for a moratorium on data center construction as the state’s most progressive candidate for governor, his DNC-backed opponent keeps collecting maxed-out donations from the full roster of Captain Planet villains—Chevron, Kalshi, Meta, Airbnb, and now Anthem BlueCross BlueShield. Those pesky Contradictions become near-impossible to ignore.
A similarly commendable action by a billionaire is highlighted in a Wall Street Journal profile published today about the breakdown of Bill Gates’ nice guy image following the revelation of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. In the Journal’s report on the hit to Gates’ meticulously manicured image caused by the DOJ’s tranche dumps in late 2025 and early 2026, it makes the case that Gates’ longtime friend and Berkshire Hathaway chairman, Warren Buffett, has gone full-on no contact with the Microsoft founder since the files dropped, referencing a March CNBC interview where Buffett says he hadn’t spoken to Gates since their release.
Melinda French Gates, revealed in a 2022 interview with Vanity Fair, that Bill’s association with Epstein was a major contributing factor to her decision to file for divorce in 2021 after 27 years of marriage. Following the announcement of their separation, Buffett stepped down as a Gates Foundation trustee and told the WSJ in 2024 that it “has no money coming after my death.” In that CNBC interview, Buffett’s comments indicate that future donations while he’s still alive might also be in jeopardy and he would need to learn more about the contents of the files before making any decisions about the annual donation to the Gates Foundation he makes each June.
The article went on to further chronicle the timeline of the widening rift between the billionaires. For the first time in years, Gates skipped Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting in early May. Despite being a board member since 2020 and not formally barred from the event, Gates was reportedly advised to not attend. A few weeks later in Ojai, California, at the annual event for the Giving Pledge—the charitable foundation founded by Bill, Melinda, and Warren that encouraged the ultra wealthy to pledge their spoils to philanthropic causes—only Mr. Gates showed up.
It bears mentioning that Buffett, often erroneously referred to as one of the “good billionaires” for setting up that pledge and acts of supposed austerity like [checks notes] paying in cash, eating at McDonald’s, and living in his hometown, Omaha, in the same five-bedroom house he purchased in 1958, is no angel. His fortune has been made on Berkshire Hathaway’s investment in some pretty bad companies and the sociopaths who helm them. And the “Buffett Rule” tax plan proposed by Obama in 2011 that would have those earning $1 million and above paying a minimum effective tax rate of 30 percent was based on views Buffett theoretically espoused but refused to back up with action. So let’s not erect any statues for the guy correctly assessing his buddy who took a bunch of jaunts to Little St. James is permanently radioactive. Ghosting Gates is more an act of rational self-preservation than a laudable stance.
Similarly, let’s not lose sight of Gates being a well-documented villain long before the Epstein revelations started poking holes in his reputation. From monopolistic practices that resulted in an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft by the federal government in 1998 to his recent attempts to patent a COVID-19 vaccine, Bill has been a heel since long before his sexual proclivities came to light. It’s almost as if there’s a larger root problem that we’ve built our entire economy on that enables those who profit the most from it to get away with all that other truly demonic stuff, like forcing everyone to use Outlook.
