Bill Gates Asked Why He's Buying So Much Farmland in the United States: Here's His Answer in Free-For-All AMA

Microsoft founder and billionaire-turned-philanthropist Bill Gates busted the long-running conspiracy theory that he owns around 80% of all US farmland earlier this week during his 11th appearance in an "Ask Me Anything". "Session (AMA) on Reddit.

What Happened: Gates, answering dozens of questions in a few hours during the AMA, including: "Why are you buying so much farmland, do you think it's is a problem with the wealth of a billionaire and how much you can acquire disproportionately?"

In response, he said, "I own less than 1/4000 of the farmland in the United States. I have invested in these farms to make them more productive and create more jobs. There is no grand plan at stake; in fact, all of these decisions are made by a professional investment team."

Conspiracy theorists claimed last year that the Microsoft founder was buying up farmland in the United States in order to starve Americans for some unknown reason, Snopes said, after researchers said in April that the world faces a potential food shortage following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

According to a 2022 report by the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Agricultural Statistics Service, there are 895,300,000 acres of farmland in the United States

Gates owns about 242,000 acres, or about 0.03% of the total.

To put it into perspective, if all of Gates land was in one place, it would cover about 25% of Rhode Island.

Also read: Which billionaire owns the most land in the United States? Hint, it's not Bill Gates

What else did Gates say?

1. He hinted that he could work on Open AI's big chatbot, ChatGPT, in collaboration with Microsoft if the announced $10 billion investment in the startup materializes.

Gates admitted he was still involved in the company's research and product projects, and said he was monitoring ChatGPT developments "very closely".< /p>

2. One user asked, “How can we get corporations and the ultra-rich to pay better wages, to pay their taxes. Rather, what steps are we taking to create an economy that benefits the masses, not the privileged few?"

Gates said, "I'm surprised taxes haven't gone up more. For example, capital gains rates could be the same as ordinary income rates. I know things are tough for a lot of people."

3. Can there be ethical billionaires?

Gates replied, "Being rich can easily disconnect you. The incentive to start new businesses is always a good thing I think. Even if taxes went up, I still wouldn't forbid anyone worth a billion, but that's just an opinion. I was very lucky."

4. The billionaire was asked if there is currently a revolutionary change in technology similar to the impact of the internet on the world.

"AI is most important," Gates said. "I don't think Web3 was that big or the metaverse alone was revolutionary, but the AI ​​is pretty revolutionary."

5. Why are you so focused on health care and vaccines?

Gates said, "When I saw children dying who could be saved for less than $1,000 a life, I knew it had to be the top priority in my life. contribution. There was hardly anyone funding work on diseases like malaria which then killed over a million children a year. We have made progress but it's still 400k and we are committed to l 'bring to zero and...