- Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates knows he's the subject of many a conspiracy theory.
- He recently told CNET about an encounter he had with a woman who thinks he uses microchips to track people.
There's no shortage of baseless conspiracy theories about Bill Gates — and that means the discussion around them can spill over from the corners of the internet and into his daily life.
One of the more popular ones the billionaire Microsoft cofounder has faced in recent years was being accused of putting microchips in vaccines to keep tabs on people. In a CNET interview published Thursday ahead of the launch of his new Netflix series, Gates talked about a chance encounter he had with one such conspiracy theorist.
Confronted on the street by a woman who believed this, Gates responded, "I really don't need to track you in particular."
Gates has said he has been surprised to be implicated in the conspiracy theories.
In 2022, he tweeted that he had "been subject to a lot of misinformation," referring to unfounded speculation that Gates was to blame for the COVID-19 pandemic. Gates said he "didn't expect" to be the focus of such speculation.
"Some of it like me putting chips in arms doesn't make sense to me — why would I want to do that?" he posted on X, formerly Twitter, at the time.
Other conspiracy theorists have suspicions about Gates' farmland purchases. With roughly 275,000 acres, Gates is the largest private farmland owner in the US, according to The Land Report.
Asked in a Reddit Ask Me Anything session last year why he's bought so much farmland, Gates responded, "I own less than 1/4000 of the farmland in the US. I have invested in these farms to make them more productive and create more jobs. There isn't some grand scheme involved — in fact all these decisions are made by a professional investment team."
Gates has said he's now come to laugh about the conspiracy theories about him.
"You got to have a sense of humor," Gates told the BBC last month. "When people say that I want to track everyone — why do I want to track everyone?"