Gates used vaccine funding to pressure governments – Merkel

The billionaire wielded his foundation’s vast wealth to push countries to spend more on vaccination, the former German chancellor says Bill Gates turned the vast financial resources of his foundation into political leverage, using its wealth to pressure governments to spend more on vaccination, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said. In the Meckel & Matthes podcast released by Handelsblatt earlier this month, Merkel warned that uncontrolled corporate power could leave governments doing “what the corporations order.” She said she first saw the danger not with the rise of artificial intelligence, but when Gates set up his foundation, which had more money “than the development budgets of major industrialized countries.” An unelected billionaire had effectively put himself on a political footing with elected leaders, according to Merkel. “He was suddenly received at least as warmly by some heads of state in the world as I was,” Merkel recalled. “And then he also had the power – by virtue of his money – to exert moral pressure.” If governments failed to provide enough funding for the international vaccine alliance, “we were immediately in a bad light,” she said. Gates would...