• Elon Musk's DOGE moved quickly to shutter America's foreign aid programs.
• Melinda French Gates said Musk shouldn't have made those cuts without going on the ground.
• "Go travel. Then decide what you're going to do," French Gates said.

Melinda French Gates says Elon Musk should reconsider his approach to foreign aid cuts.

French Gates was speaking to Fortune in an interview published Thursday when she was asked about Musk. Musk's cost-cutting outfit, the Department of Government Efficiency, has laid off thousands of foreign workers and shuttered foreign aid programs.

"I would say, before you move on an action, go out and actually see what's going on in the world today," French Gates said of Musk. "Go travel. Then decide what you're going to do."

"Yes, people in our own country are hurting. We need to do things about that. But people are really hurting around the world, and I don't think we want more poverty and more disease when we have a program that's working," French Gates added.

Musk took aim at the US Agency for International Development, a humanitarian aid agency, shortly after President Donald Trump took office in January. USAID spent nearly $32.5 billion in fiscal year 2024, providing aid to countries such as Ukraine, Jordan, and Ethiopia.

"We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could gone to some great parties. Did that instead," Musk wrote in an X post on February 3, the same day USAID shut down its headquarters.

Then, on February 4, USAID said nearly all its staff would be placed on administrative leave on February 7. In March, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said 83% of USAID's programs would be canceled, and the State Department would absorb the agency.

French Gates has on several occasions voiced her disagreements with Musk, who previously criticized her for her philanthropy.

In June, Musk said it "might be the downfall of Western civilization" after French Gates endorsed President Joe Biden's reelection campaign. Musk had been responding to an X post by the Babylon Bee staffer Ashley St. Clair about French Gates' endorsement.

"Many super villain arcs being pursued under the guise of philanthropy," St. Clair wrote in a separate X post.

"Yeah," Musk wrote in response.

In an interview with The New York Times published in July, French Gates said she thought Musk's criticism of her political activism was "silly." She added that while Musk's comments did not upset her, she was puzzled at how tech CEOs like him liked to comment on topics they had no expertise in.

"I mean, here's one thing that always has confounded me about society: I've just watched over the years tech leaders interviewed about their parenting style, a male who has spent, you know, 60 hours at his company that week, and I'm sure he's a fantastic C.E.O. and has done a great job — maybe or maybe not — in their company," French Gates said.

"But then they get asked about parenting, and they spew all this stuff, and you think, something doesn't add up here. So I just — some of these comments to me are just kind of silly," she added.

French Gates' charity work goes back decades. In 2000, she cofounded the Gates Foundation with her now ex-husband, Bill Gates. The couple had been married for 27 years when they got divorced in 2021.

French Gates announced her departure from the Gates Foundation in May 2024. Her charity work is now mainly led by Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company she started in 2015.

In an op-ed written for the Times in May 2024, French Gates said she would give $1 billion over the next two years to causes related to women and families worldwide, as well as for reproductive rights in the US.

"Many years ago, I received this piece of advice: 'Set your own agenda, or someone else will set it for you.' I've carried those words with me ever since," she wrote.

Last month, French Gates appeared on business professor and author Scott Galloway's podcast, where she was asked about the criticism she gets from tech bros regarding her philanthropy. French Gates told Galloway that she chooses to ignore those attacks and focus on her charity work.

"I think when you're not doing the work and you're not in the arena, it's easier to criticize others and to project onto others or make them look bad because you don't want to go do that work," French Gates said.

"That's up to them. If that's how they want to act? Fine, but it doesn't bother me. My work goes ahead," she added.

Musk and French Gates did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• As a child, Phoebe Gates helped Bill Gates be more social despite his nerves.
• The Microsoft founder has described himself in the past as being shy and awkward.
• Despite his timidness, Bill still knows how to intimidate her dates, Phoebe said.

Bill Gates mentions his shy and awkward phases in his memoir, and his daughter Phoebe Gates has been on a mission to change that from a young age.

Phoebe, 22, grew up in the public eye as the offspring of one of the richest men in the world. Bill founded and led Microsoft, one of the most valuable companies in the world, but he isn't much of a people person, his daughter said on an episode of "Call Her Daddy."

So, a young and extroverted Phoebe took matters into her own hands, she told host Alex Cooper on Wednesday, pulling him out of his shell whether he liked it or not.

At father-daughter dances, for example, Phoebe said she'd "force my dad to go talk to all the other dads and daughters, and he would get nervous and leave" in some instances. However, she didn't let up on the tech titan.

"I was like, 'No, if we're here, we're going to socialize. We gotta work this room, Bill,'" Phoebe said.

He may not have been comfortable at the time, but Phoebe says her family jokes that life "would be so boring" if she wasn't born.

Despite his shyness in social settings and reverence in humanitarianism, her father has a reputation for speaking his mind in the tech community. Former employees who worked under Bill have previously described him as hot-tempered.

Phoebe said she and her dad share a competitive drive that makes family game night heated. Bill is particularly ruthless when it comes to her bringing home boyfriends to meet her parents. It gets "really nerve-wracking" when her father takes puzzle pieces out of her date's hands to fit them together himself, she said.

• Melinda French Gates said she ignores the criticism she gets from tech bros on her philanthropy.
• "If that's how they want to act? Fine, but it doesn't bother me," French Gates said.
• Elon Musk has criticized French Gates and MacKenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos' ex-wife, for their work in charity.

Melinda French Gates said she isn't bothered by the nasty things tech bros have to say about her philanthropic work.

French Gates was asked about the criticism billionaires like her and MacKenzie Scott have received for their philanthropy during an interview with Scott Galloway on his podcast, which aired Thursday.

"I ignore it," French Gates said. "I know who I am and I know what I am doing and I know what my values are and why I am giving back."

"I'm not sitting on the sidelines. To me, it's so easy to sit on the sidelines and, as Roosevelt used to say, criticize from the sidelines. I'm in the arena doing the work," French Gates continued.

French Gates has received criticism for her charity work. In June, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said it "might be the downfall of Western civilization" after French Gates endorsed President Joe Biden's reelection campaign. Musk was responding to an X post by the Babylon Bee staffer Ashley St. Clair about French Gates' endorsement.

"Many super villain arcs being pursued under the guise of philanthropy," St. Clair wrote in an X post.

"Yeah," Musk replied.

Earlier, in March 2024, Musk criticized Jeff Bezos' ex-wife, Scott, for her charitable giving.

"'Super rich ex-wives who hate their former spouse' should filed be listed among 'Reasons that Western Civilization died,'" Musk wrote in a now-deleted post on X on March 6, 2024.

French Gates told Galloway that attacks and criticism will not stop her from continuing with her philanthropy.

"I think when you're not doing the work and you're not in the arena, it's easier to criticize others and to project onto others or make them look bad because you don't want to go do that work," she said.

"That's up to them. If that's how they want to act? Fine, but it doesn't bother me. My work goes ahead," she continued.

French Gates announced her divorce from Microsoft cofounder, Bill Gates, in 2021. The couple had been married for 27 years.

In May, French Gates said she had left the Gates Foundation, a philanthropic foundation she started with her now ex-husband in 2000. Her giving efforts are now mainly led by Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company she launched in 2015.

French Gates wrote about her decision to leave the Gates Foundation in an op-ed for The New York Times published in May. In that op-ed, she said she would give $1 billion over the next two years to causes relating to reproductive rights, women, and families.

"Many years ago, I received this piece of advice: 'Set your own agenda, or someone else will set it for you.' I've carried those words with me ever since," French Gates wrote.

Representatives for French Gates did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Melinda French Gates shared wisdom from influential figures in her memoir.
• Her parents and friends, like Warren Buffett, shaped her perspective on business and beyond.
• Here's what her successful friends have to say about life.

Melinda French Gates has picked up nuggets of wisdom and valuable lessons from powerful friends throughout her decades-long work in philanthropy.

The 60-year-old billionaire is an avid learner, and her new memoir, "The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward," has advice from friends, favorite authors, and her parents sprinkled throughout.

As a leader in global health research and advocate for women's rights, French Gates is often looked to for her own expertise. Sometimes, she said, it's the experiences of others that guide her.

These are some pieces of advice she's kept with her over the years.

Her mother

French Gates' parents empowered her to seek out a successful career from a young age. Her father made her attend a business course at the age of 12 to learn about goal setting.

Her mother gave her advice that French Gates relayed in her book.

She told her,"'Set your own agenda or someone else will,'" French Gates wrote in the book. She took her mother's statement to heart and ran with it.

"It became one of my mantras, especially once I got into global health," she said during a live interview with Abby Phillip from CNN.

Warren Buffett

"'You're working on the problems society left behind, and they left them behind for a reason. They are hard, right? So don't be so tough on yourself,'" French Gates recalled Buffett saying in an interview.

The Berkshire Hathaway boss is a longtime friend and philanthropic ally of French Gates and her ex-husband Bill Gates. Buffett has seen the couple through their Microsoft days and their 2021 divorce. He has dropped some knowledge over the years, according to French Gates.

Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King

In 2024, French Gates sat down with best friend duo Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King to discuss aging and transitions in honor of her 60th birthday. They connected on the stages of life and female friendship. Their conversation yielded advice that inspired her enough to be included in "The Next Day."

"Aging is just another word for living," King said.

Winfrey spoke about an inner voice, or intuition, that might be quietly telling you something you need to know. Listening to it and leaning into the discomfort of the unknown, French Gates said, is a sign of growth.

"Catch it in the whisper," Winfrey said. "What is it whispering to you now?"

• Melinda French Gates feared her family's vast wealth would result in entitled children.
• The billionaire philanthropist sent them to local schools, and they all took part in community work.
• Bill Gates' ex-wife used an allowance and chores to keep them grounded, she told a podcast.

Melinda French Gates knew her three children were at high risk of being detached from reality, so she says she took pains to keep them grounded.

With Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates as their father, Jennifer, Rory, and Phoebe Gates were surrounded by a "crazy amount of wealth" and lived in an "extraordinarily large house," French Gates told NPR's "Fresh Air" podcast this week.

The philanthropist is worth about $14 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. She said she reflected on her own childhood, and the tenets her middle-class parents instilled in her, to figure out how to stave off entitlement and elitism in her kids.

"I wanted them to have deep values. And I wanted them to know they were lucky," French Gates said in the interview, part of the publicity tour for her new book: "The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward."

French Gates, who divorced Gates in 2021 and stepped down as cochair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation last year, said she enrolled her children in local schools instead of homeschooling them. She wanted her family to be part of the community, and believed it would benefit her children, she said.

Her kids did take some "knocks" as she moved them between numerous schools in search of the "right school for the right kid," she said.

French Gates, who launched The Giving Pledge with Gates and Warren Buffett, made sure to expose her kids to the outside world whether they were overseas or at home.

"We went out and saw what life was like for other kids," she said. "And even in the Seattle community, we would go out and work with the homeless, work in a community shelter, be on the lines where they're feeding people."

Those experiences opened their eyes to how lucky they were and made them think about their role in society, French Gates said. She added that her younger daughter, Phoebe, worked in Rwanda for several summers in middle and high school and lived with a local family there.

French Gates said that seeing the world gave her kids perspective about the harsh realities of life and the fact that Seattle was just a "tiny speck on the map."

"And so I tried to ground them in that, ground them with chores, ground them with an allowance," she said, adding that she made sure the hired help had good values too.

French Gates also discussed why she values community work on the "On With Kara Swisher" podcast this week. She said that helping the homeless, mentoring or helping kids with their homework, and serving food to the less fortunate teaches valuable lessons and makes people feel better for helping out.

• Melinda French Gates took her first business course at 12 years old.
• The course emphasized writing and achieving life goals.
• French Gates said she later realized the need to balance goal-setting with enjoying life.

Melinda French Gates picked up her knack for goal-setting at an early age.

During the summer after seventh grade, her father sent a 12-year-old French Gates and her sister off to a business course. It was called the "Successful Life Course," and her dad had attended on an earlier work trip.

He was so inspired by what he learned, she wrote in her memoir "The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward," that he signed his daughters up to attend the class over 100 miles away from her Dallas home.

"'Oh my God,' I remember thinking. 'What did they do to my father?'" she wrote.

Their class used books from self-help guru Dale Carnegie and practiced "mind-controlled relaxation," which French Gates said was essentially power naps. The main lesson, however, was the art of goal-setting. They started with short-term goals and pushed on to life goals — reinforcing their commitment by writing them out each night before.

These are the goals that 12-year-old French Gates set for her future self:

• By age fourteen, to have made the intramural cheerleading squad.
• By twenty, to have taken a trip to Europe.
• And by twenty-one, to own her own car. ("'A Cadillac with velvet seats,' I specified, dreamily," she said.)

After the course ended, French Gates said she kept the navy blue binder she received and continued using it each night.

"Over time, the goals I wrote down started to become more and more serious," she wrote.

Although the goal-setting lessons stayed with her, she added that there was a key part of the class she'd been less disciplined in: reflecting on the goals she managed to achieve. Instead of slowing down after crossing off items on her list, her "entire focus would shift to the next one." Her ambition led her to a job at Microsoft, and, eventually, an estimated net worth of $30.1 billion, according to Forbes.

"I was almost using the goals to just push myself so hard in life," French Gates told CNN's Abby Phillip on Monday.

Yet by 35, she realized it was time to set the goal-setting aside and "ease into life," French Gates said during the live interview. At that age she'd been married to her ex-husband, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, for years and had become a mother. She wasn't done with her ambitions, however.

"I'm gonna have big audacious goals, but I'm gonna give myself some time to achieve them," she said she told herself at the time.

• Melinda French Gates said she tends to focus on one task at a time to avoid mistakes.
• She said multitasking is a myth and led to errors in her career.
• During her career at Microsoft, multitasking was a big deal.

Melinda French Gates believes in taking on tasks one at a time.

During a Monday appearance for her new book, "The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward," French Gates responded to a question about the challenge of focusing in the era of emails, social media, and other distractions.

"I think multitasking is a myth, honestly," French Gates told CNN's Abby Phillip.

She added, "I made some of my biggest mistakes when I was multitasking."

The 60-year-old billionaire philanthropist started her tech career at Microsoft in 1987 when it was a budding company making a name for itself. Even in the pre-smartphone era, French Gates said, there was a lot of urgency in the corporate world.

Once she realized multitasking wasn't for her, she had to do things her way. She discovered that she was "much better off" when she could tell herself to slow down and focus on one thing at a time.

"I might not complete the whole task, but focus on it. Put it aside, even if it's only 60% done, and then focus on the next thing," French Gates said.

Microsoft has a reputation for having a fast-paced culture where the smartest and most productive employees thrived under her ex-husband and former boss, Bill Gates. The Microsoft founder took on loads of information daily as the CEO, managing multiple teams at once, a former employee told BI in 2023.

In French Gates' case, she said taking a different approach "really helped me."

• In her new memoir, Melinda French Gates shared her first pregnancy experience.
• She said Bill Gates went to work and she was "cheerfully alone" at the hospital.
• Gates joined her when she was in active labor, which took over 14 hours.

Right before giving birth, Melinda French Gates was alone at the hospital. She said she loved it.

In her new memoir, "The Next Day," Gates, 60, shared details of her 27-year marriage and divorce from Bill Gates, including how she dealt with different life transitions.

One of them was the birth of Jennifer Gates, the first of the Gates' three children, in 1996. Gates said the birthing process was long, and that she spent the beginning of her labor experience by herself while Bill Gates returned to work.

Bill Gates went to work as a 'compromise'

First-time deliveries often take longer because the body's tissues and muscles haven't been stretched before. Gates was told that "labor can last an astonishingly long time," she wrote in the book.

The Gates's arrived at the hospital before Gates technically started feeling contractions. Because they were early, their doctor debated sending them back home to wait.

Instead, Gates said she "settled on a compromise" with her husband: he would go to the office while she stayed at the hospital. The plan was to call him once she entered active labor.

She enjoyed the solo time

"Before you roll your eyes, keep in mind that there really wasn't anything for him to do yet," Gates wrote in the book.

She said she was "cheerfully alone," roaming the halls of the Overlake Medical Center in Bellevue, Washington. To keep herself occupied, she read Edith Wharton's "The Custom of the Country" and thought about her upcoming delivery.

Gates said Bill Gates' assistant was "hovering by the phone" all day, expecting a call at any minute. Once she entered active labor, Gates told Bill to hurry over.

When he arrived at the hospital, she said he was "fascinated" by the delivery process, which took over 14 and a half hours. She described the experience as "really hard," due to a complication in the baby's positioning. Gates also opted out of pain medication, wanting to "feel every sensation."

In the end, Gates remembers immediately falling in love with her new daughter. "I was absolutely smitten," she wrote. "A new chapter began."

• Melinda French Gates chose Duke University over Catholic schools after a tour as a teen.
• Despite her Catholic background, she was drawn to Duke's cutting-edge technology.
• Duke was her top choice, but she struggled to adjust when she arrived, French Gates writes.

Melinda French Gates went against the crowd to attend Duke, and she's proud to be a Blue Devil.

Catholic universities like Notre Dame were popular choices for high school girls with a religious background like hers, French Gate said in her book, "The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward." Instead she chose to move away from Dallas, where she grew up, to Duke University in North Carolina.

The 60-year-old billionaire philanthropist, who was married to Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates for 27 years, wrote that she assumed she'd follow the path of the Catholic education she'd been on her whole life, but a visit to Durham, North Carolina, changed her mind.

French Gates "absolutely fell in love" with Duke when she toured the campus in the spring of her senior year, and it wasn't just because of its beauty.

"It was the gleam of the state-of-the-art computer lab," French Gates wrote.

She developed an early love for computer science as a kid practicing on an Apple III computer. It fueled her dreams of changing the world. At Duke, the lab had technology that was considered cutting-edge for the time.

"It felt like a portal to the life I wanted," French Gates wrote.

It inspired her to pursue an education in computer science at the university. However, her first semester after moving into her dorm in 1982 was a "culture shock" for a Texas girl who grew up going to an all-girls Catholic school. In the "Next Day," she recalled the "brash, arrogant guys" in her class who shouted out answers instead of politely raising their hands as she'd been taught.

French Gates also said she felt unprepared for her first course in computer science. Her professor spoke a different programming language the one she'd excelled at in high school.

"I had no idea what he was talking about," French Gates wrote.

The ordeal made her doubt her choice — wondering if she'd aimed too high by choosing Duke, she said. Looking back, she wrote, she realized it was a normal experience for freshmen in college.

"If I'd packed up and gone home, transferred schools, and scrapped my plans, there is no question that my life would have been completely different," French Gates wrote.

She graduated with a degree in computer science and economics in 1986 and an MBA from Duke's Fuqua School of Business in 1987.

• Melinda French Gates, 60, says she stopped worrying about what others think about her.
• "I deserve to be where I am in life," she said, adding that it's a wisdom that comes with age.
• According to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index today, French Gates's net worth is about $14.4 billion.

At 60, Melinda French Gates says she finally stopped worrying about what others think about her — and she's never felt more confident in herself.

During an appearance on Monday's episode of "The Jamie Kern Lima Show," French Gates spoke about how she learned to deal with self-doubt.

Like many women in tech, she once struggled with imposter syndrome for "many, many, many" years — but growing older has shifted her perspective.

"Not very often is the honest truth," French Gates told podcast host Jamie Kern Lima when asked if she still deals with imposter syndrome.

"I deserve to be where I am in life. Like, I've worked really hard to get here, and I know myself. If people don't like me or they don't like what I'm saying, I'm kind of at the point in life where I'm like, 'Take it or leave it,'" French Gates said. "Like if I'm not your cup of tea, that's OK."

She added that her self-confidence could be a product of growing older.

"Maybe that comes with being 60," she said, before recounting something her mother told her years ago.

"I remember when she crossed 60, she said, 'You know, I just somehow feel very confident going around. You know, I go to pick up the clothes at the cleaners and I tell them how they could be more organized. Or I go to the grocery store, and something's not quite right at the cash register, and I speak out and tell them what they ought to be doing.' She goes, 'I don't know what's gotten into me, but I just feel comfortable speaking my truth,'" French Gates said, recalling her mother's words.

"And so maybe that's sort of the wisdom that comes with 60 — you just get very comfortable in your skin," French Gates said.

It even applies to her personal appearance. Growing up in Texas, there was a pressure to always look "perfect" — but not anymore, she said.

"And now, like, I'm perfectly comfortable going out — maybe too comfortable — some days with, you know, not having washed my hair for four days, and it's in a ponytail, and I'm still going to go out and walk to the store, you know? And I am who I am," French Gates said.

She added that no longer needing external validation felt "so freeing."

French Gates joined Microsoft as a product manager in 1987, after graduating from Duke University. She worked at the tech company for almost a decade. During her time at Microsoft, she served as project manager of Microsoft Bob, Microsoft Encarta, and Expedia.

Microsoft was also where she met her now ex-husband, Bill Gates, whom she divorced in 2021 after 27 years of marriage. They share three children together.

The former couple did not have a prenuptial agreement and split their property according to a separation contract. Following their split, Gates transferred over $6 billion worth of stock to French Gates.

According to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index today, French Gates's net worth is about $14.4 billion.

A representative for French Gates did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular hours.

• Melinda French Gates said she struggled leading up to and during her divorce from Bill Gates.
• French Gates wrote about her nightmares and feeling panicky in her new memoir, "The Next Day."
• Their divorce was finalized in 2021, over a year after their private separation.

Breakups are hard, even if you're guaranteed to walk away a billionaire.

Melinda French Gates' divorce from Bill Gates was years in the making — and presaged by nightmares and bouts of panic that made her face her feelings, she told People in an interview.

Gates and French Gates announced their split in a joint statement in 2021. In her coming memoir, "The Next Day," she wrote about her feelings leading up to their official divorce. French Gates said she experienced cryptic nightmares beginning in 2019 that left her in a panic. The final blow was a vision of herself plummeting into a void while her family stood on the edge of a cliff.

French Gates wrote that that was the moment she knew it was time for her to make a big life decision on her own. In 2020, she told her then-husband that she wanted to live separately.

"It was one of the scariest conversations I'd have had," she wrote.

However, Gates was "understanding and respectful" upon hearing the news, though he was "sad and upset," French Gates wrote. Months later, in the summer of 2020, she asked him for a divorce.

Her panicked feelings didn't end with that revelation. French Gates said she started "having panic attacks" in the months during and leading up to their divorce proceedings.

"Bill has a reputation for being one of the toughest negotiators in the world," French Gates wrote.

Their divorce was finalized in August 2021 after "grueling" and lengthy proceedings, she wrote in the memoir. She walked away with $6.3 billion worth of Microsoft stock, and her net worth is an estimated $30 billion, Forbes reported.

These days, French Gates is continuing her philanthropic endeavors through her company, Pivotal Ventures, and reportedly dating. Late last year, she was spotted holding hands with Philip Vaughn, an entrepreneur and former Microsoft employee.

Correction: April 2, 2025 — Corrects French Gates' estimated net worth to $30 billion, not $30 million.

• Melinda French Gates has moved on with her life following her 2021 divorce from Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
• Although the split was difficult, it was also one of the most important things she's ever done, she said.
• Her comments come after her ex-husband said in January that their split "was the mistake I most regret."

Melinda French Gates, 60, isn't looking back after her divorce from Bill Gates.

In an interview with Elle published on Monday, French Gates spoke about the dissolution of her marriage to the Microsoft founder.

"Look, divorces are painful, and it's not something I would wish on any family," French Gates told Elle.

The philanthropist, who shares three children with Gates, said that ending her marriage was one of the hardest yet most significant decisions she's ever made, per Elle.

The pair first met in 1987, shortly after French Gates started working at Microsoft as a product manager. After seven years of dating, they married in 1994. In May 2021, they announced they were ending their marriage after 27 years, and their divorce was finalized in August.

French Gates also said she was not interested in dating at the moment.

"But again, I knew when I got divorced, I would be okay on my own. And I think that was the most important thing," French Gates said.

She had a hopeful answer when asked what she wanted someone to know about her if they Googled her five years from now.

"She's thriving on the other side of a divorce," French Gates said. "Just thriving."

French Gates' comments come after her ex-husband told The Times in January that their split "was the mistake I most regret."

"You would have to put that at the top of the list," Gates said when asked if the divorce was his only failure in life. "There are others but none that matter. The divorce thing was miserable for me and Melinda for at least two years."

The Microsoft founder added that he and French Gates still see each other at family events.

In the wake of their split in 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported that French Gates had been seeking a divorce since 2019 when it was publicly revealed that Gates had met with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein multiple times. There were also reports of Gates' extramarital affairs during his tenure as Microsoft CEO.

In a 2022 CBS interview with Gayle King, French Gates described her emotions after the divorce and said she was "grieving" the loss of something she thought she had for a lifetime.

"I had a lot of tears for many days," French Gates said, recalling how she would lie on the floor and think, "How can this be? How can I get up? How am I going to move forward?"

The former couple did not have a prenuptial agreement and split their property according to a separation contract. Following their split, Gates transferred over $6 billion worth of stock to French Gates.

According to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index today, French Gates's net worth is about $15 billion.

A representative for French Gates did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular hours.

• Melinda French Gates joined Microsoft in 1987 after graduating from business school.
• French Gates said she had a job offer from IBM before interviewing at Microsoft.
• She took the job at Microsoft after her hiring manager at IBM encouraged her to.

Melinda French Gates' life may have been very different if not for a conversation she had with an IBM hiring manager in the '80s.

During an interview with LinkedIn News on Tuesday, French Gates said she got a job offer from IBM after completing two summer internships there.

She then had a conversation with a hiring manager that made her decide to go to Microsoft — a choice that defined her career and personal life.

"My hiring manager at IBM, a female, said to me, 'OK, are you ready to accept the job offer?' I was in person with her, and I said: 'Well, I have one more company to go interview. This little company, Microsoft.' It was tiny," French Gates said.

"And she said, 'If they give you an offer, you should take it.' And it dumbfounded me. Here's this woman who's supposed to be my manager, giving me a piece of career advice, and so when I did get that offer from Microsoft, I really took that to heart," she added.

French Gates joined Microsoft as a product manager after graduating from Duke University's business school in 1987.

"This is going to be a bit scary. I didn't know anybody in Seattle. It was moving to the West Coast, but I was so excited about what they were doing. I was like, 'I want to be part of that,'" French Gates told LinkedIn News.

French Gates worked at Microsoft for nearly a decade, where she rose to the position of general manager and oversaw the company's information products.

Microsoft was also where she met her now ex-husband, Bill Gates. The couple married in 1994, and French Gates left Microsoft in 1996. They divorced in 2021 after 27 years of marriage.

In May, French Gates announced her departure from the Gates Foundation, a philanthropic foundation she cofounded with Gates in 2000. Her giving efforts are now mainly handled by Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company she founded in 2015.

"Many years ago, I received this piece of advice: 'Set your own agenda, or someone else will set it for you.' I've carried those words with me ever since," French Gates wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times explaining her decision to leave the Gates Foundation.

Representatives for French Gates didn't respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Bill Gates confirmed he's dating philanthropist Paula Hurd following his divorce from Melinda French Gates in 2021.
• Hurd, the widow of late Oracle CEO Mark Hurd, has worked in sales and service leadership roles in her career.
• The Microsoft cofounder also mentioned Paula Hurd in the acknowledgments section of his new book, "Source Code."

Bill Gates has confirmed he's seeing someone after his divorce four years ago.

The Microsoft cofounder, who was previously married to Melinda French Gates for 27 years until 2021, said on "The Today Show" on Tuesday that he's "lucky to have a serious girlfriend named Paula."

"We're having fun, going to the Olympics and lots of great things," he added.

Gates' girlfriend, Paula Hurd, was formerly married to the late Mark Hurd, whose career included tenures as the CEO of Oracle and Hewlett-Packard. They share two children and were married for nearly 30 years until Mark's death in 2019.

Hurd got her bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Texas at Austin in 1984. During her career, she held various sales and services leadership roles at NCR Corporation and, in her final position at the company, was its vice president of services, heading up a team managing global strategic partnerships, according to her bio from Baylor University.

Hurd and her late husband, a Baylor alum, made several notable donations to the university, including leading the funding of its new welcome center, which was named the Mark and Paula Hurd Welcome Center.

"Our family is absolutely thrilled with the Hurd Welcome Center," Paula Hurd said in a 2023 ribbon-cutting ceremony. "When we made this gift, Mark had a vision for how a welcome experience could transform this corner of campus, and the outcome has by far exceeded our expectations and dreams. I know he would be proud of not only what has been built but the way in which others in the Baylor Family rallied around the Give Light Campaign to generate more than $1.39 billion in gifts to support the University he loved."

Hurd, who is a member of Baylor's Board of Regents, is also chairperson of the Universal Tennis Foundation, for which she sponsors annual awards for college players transitioning to professional tennis.

Hurd and Gates share a love of tennis. Gates has played with tennis pros, including Rafael Nadal and Andre Agassi, in charity games and previously told Business Insider that his pandemic routine included socially distanced tennis.

Gates and Hurd were publicly spotted together as early as 2022, when they attended the Laver Cup tennis tournament together. They also watched a tennis match at the Australian Open in January 2023. Also that year, Gates accompanied Hurd to a ceremony at Baylor officially opening the university's new welcome center.

Gates and Hurd made their red carpet debut in April at the 2024 Breakthrough Prize Ceremony. As Gates mentioned in his "Today Show" interview, they attended the 2024 Paris Olympics together as well. Representatives for Gates and Hurd did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Gates also included Hurd in the acknowledgments of his new memoir, "Source Code," which came out this month.

"Early readers of the manuscript included Paula Hurd, Marc St. John, and Sheila Gulati. The close read from dear and trusted friends provided much-needed thoughtful and insightful feedback at critical stages in the writing," he wrote.

• Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates shares three kids with his ex-wife Melinda French Gates.
• His eldest daughter is a med school graduate and his youngest a startup cofounder.
• Here's what we know about the children of one of the world's richest men.

Bill Gates' story is a quintessential example of the American entrepreneurial dream: A brilliant math whiz, Gates was 19 when he dropped out of Harvard and cofounded Microsoft with his friend, the late Paul Allen, in 1975.

Nearly 50 years later, Gates' net worth of almost $108 billion makes him one of the richest and most famous men on Earth, per Forbes. He stepped down from Microsoft's board in 2020 and has cultivated his brand of philanthropy with the Gates Foundation — a venture he formerly ran with his now ex-wife Melinda French Gates, who resigned in May. 

Even before founding one of the world's most valuable companies, Gates' life was anything but ordinary. He grew up in a well-off and well-connected family, surrounded by his parents' rarefied personal and professional network. Their circle included a Cabinet secretary and a governor of Washington, according to "Hard Drive," the 1992 biography of Gates by James Wallace and Jim Erickson. (Brock Adams, who went on to become the transportation secretary in the Carter administration, is said to have introduced Gates' parents.)

His father, William Gates Sr., was a prominent corporate lawyer in Seattle and the president of the Washington State Bar Association.

His mother, Mary Gates, came from a line of successful bankers and sat on the boards of important financial and social institutions, including the nonprofit United Way. It was there, according to her New York Times obituary, that she met the former IBM chairman John Opel — a fateful connection thought to have led to IBM enlisting Microsoft to provide an operating system in the 1980s.

"My parents were well off — my dad did well as a lawyer, took us on great trips, we had a really nice house," Gates said in the 2019 Netflix documentary "Inside Bill's Brain."

"And I've had so much luck in terms of all these opportunities."

Despite his very public life, his three children with French Gates — Jennifer, Rory, and Phoebe — have largely avoided the spotlight for most of their upbringing. 

Like their father, the three Gates children attended Seattle's elite Lakeside School, a private high school that has been recognized for excellence in STEM subjects — and that received a $40 million donation from Bill Gates in 2005 to build its financial aid fund. (Bill Gates and Paul Allen met at Lakeside and went on to build Microsoft together.)

As they've gotten older, they've stepped more into the public eye, and more details have emerged about their interests, professions, and family life. 

Gates recently said his children will get "less than 1%" of his fortune when he dies. But they may also inherit the family foundation, where most of his money will go.

Here's all we know about Bill Gates' children.

Gates and his children did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Jennifer Gates Nassar

Jennifer Gates Nassar, who goes by Jenn, is the oldest of the Gates children at 28 years old.

A decorated equestrian, Gates Nassar started riding horses when she was six. Her father has shelled out millions of dollars to support her passion, including buying a California horse farm for $18 million and acquiring several parcels of land in Wellington, Florida, to build an equestrian facility.

In 2018, Gates Nassar received her undergraduate degree in human biology from Stanford University, where a computer science building was named for her father after he donated $6 million to the project in 1996.

She then attended the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, from which she graduated in May. She's continuing at Mt. Sinai for her residency in pediatric research. During medical school, she also completed a Master's in Public Health at Columbia University — perhaps a natural interest given her parents' extensive philanthropic activity in the space.

"Can't believe we've reached this moment, a little girl's childhood aspiration come true," she wrote on Instagram. "It's been a whirlwind of learning, exams, late nights, tears, discipline, and many moments of self-doubt, but the highs certainly outweighed the lows these past 5 years."

In October 2021, she married Egyptian equestrian Nayel Nassar. In February 2023, reports surfaced that they bought a $51 million New York City penthouse with six bedrooms and a plunge pool. The next month, they welcomed their first child, Leila, and in October, Gates Nassar gave birth to their second daughter, Mia.

"I'm over the moon for you, @jenngatesnassar and @nayelnassar—and overjoyed for our whole family," Bill Gates commented on the Instagram post announcing Mia's birth.

In a 2020 interview with the equestrian lifestyle publication Sidelines, Gates Nassar discussed growing up wealthy.

"I was born into a huge situation of privilege," she said. "I think it's about using those opportunities and learning from them to find things that I'm passionate about and hopefully make the world a little bit of a better place."

She recently posted about visiting Kenya, where she learned about childhood health and development in the country.

Rory John Gates

Rory John Gates, who is in his mid-20s, is Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates' only son and the most private of their children. He maintains private social media accounts, and his sisters and parents rarely post photos of him.

His mother did, however, write an essay about him in 2017. Titled "How I Raised a Feminist Son," she describes as a "great son and a great brother" who "inherited his parents' obsessive love of puzzles."

In 2022, he graduated from the University of Chicago, where, based on a photo posted on Facebook, he appears to have been active in moot court. At the time of his graduation, Jennifer Gates Nassar wrote that he had achieved a double major and master's degree.

Little is publicly known about what the middle Gates child has been up to since he graduated, but a Puck report from last year gave some clues, saying that he is seen as a "rich target for Democratic social-climbers, influence-peddlers, and all variety of money chasers."

Phoebe Gates

Phoebe Gates, 22, is the youngest of the Gates children.

After graduating from high school in 2021, she followed her sister to Stanford. She graduated in June after three years with a Bachelor of Science in Human Biology. Her mom, Melinda French Gates, delivered the university's commencement address.

In a story that Gates wrote for Nylon about her graduation, she documented the day, including a party she cohosted that featured speeches from her famous parents and a piggyback ride from her boyfriend Arthur Donald — the grandson of Sir Paul McCartney.

She has long shown an interest in fashion, interning at British Vogue and posting on social media from fashion weeks in Copenhagen, New York, and Paris. Sustainability is often a theme of her content, which highlights vintage and secondhand stores and celebrates designers who don't use real leather and fur.

That has culminated in her cofounding Phia, a sustainable fashion tech platform that launched in beta this fall. The site and its browser extension crawl secondhand marketplaces to find specific items in an effort to help shoppers find deals and prevent waste.

Her father told The New York Times he was glad she didn't ask him to back the startup.

"I thought, 'Oh boy, she's going to come and ask,'" Gates said. "I would have kept her on a short leash and be doing business reviews, which I would have found tricky, and I probably would have been overly nice, but wondered if it was the right thing to do. Luckily, it never happened."

In 2025, Phoebe also launched a podcast called "The Burnouts" with her former roommate and current cofounder Sofia Kianni.

Gates shares her parents' passion for public health. She's attended the UN General Assembly with her mother and spent time in Rwanda with Partners in Health, a nonprofit that has received funding from the Gates Foundation.

Like her mother, Gates often publicly discusses issues of gender equality, including in essays for Vogue and Teen Vogue, at philanthropic gatherings, and on social media, where she frequently posts about reproductive rights.

She's given thousands to Democrats and Democratic causes, including to Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and the Democratic Party of Montana, per data from OpenSecrets. According to Puck, she receives a "giving allowance" that makes it possible for her to cut the checks.

Perhaps the most public of the Gates children — she's got over 450,000 Instagram followers and a partnership with Tiffany & Co. — she's given glimpses into their upbringing, including strict rules around technology. The siblings were not allowed to use their phones before bed, she told Bustle, and to get around the rule, she created a cardboard decoy.

"I thought I could dupe my dad, and it worked, actually, for a couple nights," she told the outlet earlier this year. "And then my mom came home and was like, 'This is literally a piece of cardboard you're plugging in. You're using your phone in your room.' Oh, my gosh, I remember getting in trouble for that."

It hasn't always been easy being Gates's daughter. In the Netflix documentary "What's Next? The Future With Bill Gates," she said she lost friends because of a conspiracy theory suggesting her father used COVID-19 vaccines to implant microchips into recipients.

"I've even had friends cut me off because of these vaccine rumors," she said.