Elon Musk's Twitter Files include no mention of, much alone "expose," Bill Gates – verify your facts

According to social media posts, Elon Musk’s Twitter Files “exposed” Bill Gates “so hard” that the Microsoft co-founder disabled tweet comments. However, Gates is not mentioned in the Twitter Files, which were revealed in December 2022. In July 2020, Gates will switch off comments.

“Elon Musk EXPOSED Bill Gates in the latest twitter files so hard that he has now turned off comments on his Twitter,” reads a claim circulating on social media in South Africa and elsewhere in January 2023.

Elon Musk, a billionaire, co-created PayPal and invented SpaceX. He also serves as the CEO of Tesla. Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter in October 2022.

Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation were co-founded by billionaire Bill Gates.

On December 2, 2022, Musk and a group of journalists began distributing what are known as the Twitter Files, internal corporate records from before Musk took over. The data has been provided in a series of twitter threads.

The first allegation that Gates was “exposed” in the Twitter Files was made on Twitter by the account Anti WEF on January 16, 2023. The account supports numerous World Economic Forum conspiracy theories.

But do the Twitter Files truly reveal Gates? And, as a result, did he disable his Twitter comments?

Gates was not the subject of any of the eight batches of Twitter Files.

The assertion makes no mention of what the Twitter Files revealed about Gates. This ambiguity and utter lack of clarity in an accusation is frequently indicative of incorrect information.

So far, the Twitter Files have been disclosed in eight instalments. Each batch’s subjects are as follows:

• Twitter’s moderation process after a New York Post article on Hunter Biden’s laptop
• The practice of “shadow banning” certain Twitter users
• Former US president Donald Trump’s suspension from Twitter
• Twitter’s reaction to the 6 January 2021 attack on the US capitol
• Twitter employees’ influence on the decision to ban Trump
• Twitter’s interaction with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about election disinformation
• Twitter’s interaction with the US intelligence community about Hunter Biden’s laptop
• The Twitter site integrity team’s whitelisting of accounts from US Central Command, which runs influence campaigns elsewhere in the world

Bill Gates is not mentioned in any of the eight batches.

Gates did disable comments on his tweets in July 2020. Only persons Gates follows or mentions in his tweets have the ability to respond. There is no explanation for this block.

Gates was not “exposed” by the Twitter Files. And the files were initially made available in December 2022. Gates “turned off comments on his Twitter” in July 2020, more than two years ago.

Reuters and Check Your Facts have also refuted the allegation.

This report was written by Africa Check., a non-partisan fact-checking organisation. View the original piece on their website.

Disclaimer: Funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation made up 11% of Africa Check’s income in 2020.