Elon Musk responds to Bill Gates after he accused him of 'killing the world’s poorest children'

Bill Gates slammed Elon Musk over his leading of Donald Trump's DOGE, but the Twitter owner has since hit back with a blunt five-word response.

After being sworn in for his second term as US president, Donald Trump swiftly appointed Elon Musk as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

During his 90 days in the role, Musk certainly didn't waste any time with his task to slash the federal workforce to save money, sending an ultimatum email out to employees - with Trump's government then ending up having to come back with their tail between their legs to rehire 180 people.

The move didn't go unnoticed by Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, who went on to accuse him of 'killing the world's poorest children' as a result of shrinking dozens of agencies and departments, including foreign aid initiatives like the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Speaking of USAID, Musk said back in February it was a 'criminal organization' and it was 'time for it to die.'

Before Musk came in with his axe, USAID reportedly had around 10,000 staff and was the world's largest single donor of humanitarian aid - spending $40 million across the world in 2023's fiscal year.

Yet Musk said: "It became apparent that it's not an apple with a worm it in. What we have is just a ball of worms. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing."

Gates resolved this as a show of 'the world's richest man killing the world's poorest children' - noting to the Financial Times the picture 'is not a pretty one'.

And Gorklon Rust - aka Elon Musk - has since seemingly responded to Gates, taking to Twitter on May 8.

Apparently Gates is a liar, liar, pants on fire according to Musk (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Netflix)

The post, which is responding to a clip of Gates on CBS Morning making a similar claim, reads: "Gates is a huge liar."

However, Gates went into more detail in his interview.

He detailed how the cuts DOGE made have led to life-saving medicines and food supplies expiring in warehouses.

Gates explained how this could well lead to countries seeing a surge in diseases such as measles, HIV and polio as a result of not having access to such medicines.

The philanthropist also accused Musk of cancelling grants to aid a hospital in Gaza which prevents women passing HIV on to their newborn babies under a false claim that the US was distributing condoms to Hamas in the region.

He added: “I’d love for him to go in and meet the children that have now been infected with HIV because he cut that money."

UNILAD has previously reached out to the US government for comment.