Bill Gates defends USAID's work after meeting with Trump and White House chief of staff

WASHINGTON — Billionaire Bill Gates, a philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft, said he met with President Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday to advocate for continuing foreign aid disbursements from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

"I went by the White House because there's a lot in this transition, what we keep, in terms of foreign aid, what we keep — it's all kind of up in the air," he told NBC’s "TODAY" show anchor Savannah Guthrie in an interview. "And I'm doing my best to make sure we keep the things that I think are very value-based."

Gates said he had a "brief meeting" with Trump and a "long meeting" with chief of staff Susie Wiles, whom he called "very thoughtful." He spoke to Guthrie at an event at George Washington University, where he was promoting his new book.

"I went through that 'Hey, I've been out in the field with USAID,'" said Gates, who co-launched the nonprofit Gates Foundation in 2000.

"It's unbelievable what an asset that is," he said, referring to USAID's operations around the world. "I know all the development agencies of all the countries, and this is the best of them."

A White House spokesperson confirmed Gates was at the White House but did not provide further details. 

The Trump administration has taken aim at USAID, a taxpayer-funded agency that delivers billions of dollars in humanitarian aid to other countries but has attracted attention from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which has accused it of wasteful spending. USAID has placed almost all direct hires on administrative leave following the reforms under the Trump administration. The agency’s website has gone dark, and the administration temporarily frozen foreign aid.

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Replicating USAID's impact would most likely prove difficult, Gates said.

"Getting those people out there in their depth of experience, that's an asset that would be very hard to recreate," he said.

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When Guthrie asked whether Trump and Wiles seemed receptive to his arguments, Gates responded, "I hope so."

Gates told Guthrie he has not met with Musk, a driving force behind the cuts who has referred to USAID as a "criminal organization" amid his efforts to gut it, to discuss the issue.

"I don't know how open-minded he is," Gates told Guthrie.

While Gates said he has "nothing but admiration" for Musk's innovation with Tesla and SpaceX, he said that when people move into the public sector, "sometimes people appreciate that this is different than the private sector."

"Even in the private sector, you rarely lay off 100% of the people overnight," he said, appearing to refer to Musk's efforts to slash the federal workforce.