Tucker Carlson appears to reference a COVID-19 conspiracy theory by claiming Bill Gates has 'powers' over our bodies

• Tucker Carlson said that Bill Gates has "powers over what you can and cannot do to your own body."
• Conspiracy theorists falsely claim that Gates used the COVID vaccine to inject microchip trackers.
• A May 2020 poll found 44% of Republicans believed the unfounded conspiracy theory.

Tucker Carlson appeared to reference a popular COVID-19 conspiracy theory about Bill Gates on Monday night, claiming that the Microsoft founder has "powers" over our bodies.

On "Tucker Carlson Tonight," he said "your body" is "Bill Gates' body now," because Gates has donated $1.6 billion to the global response to the pandemic.

"Bill Gates has gained extraordinary powers over what you can and cannot do to your own body. Bill Gates would like you to take the coronavirus vaccine," Carlson said.

The Fox News segment was first reported by Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog. A Fox News spokesperson told Insider that Carlson did not directly reference conspiracy theories related to Gates or coronavirus vaccines.

The idea that Gates wants to control "what you can and cannot do to your own body" is a claim made for months by conspiracy theorists who said without evidence that the philanthropist planned to implant microchips into humans through the COVID-19 vaccines.

A May 2020 poll from Yahoo News and YouGov reported that 44% of Republicans believed Gates was "plotting to use a mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign as a pretext to implant microchips in billions of people and monitor their movements." Insider debunked the claim after it began spreading in the spring of 2020. Gates said he was surprised by the "really evil theories" about him in a January interview with Reuters.

Medical misinformation has remained a massive global issue throughout the pandemic. Research published in the Nature Human Behaviour scientific journal found that misinformation related to the vaccine "lowers intent to accept" the preventative shot, which the Centers for Disease Control says will help end the pandemic.

In the last week, Gates was again referenced by conspiracy theorists, this time falsely claiming that he was somehow involved in Winter Storm Uri in Texas. Because he has donated to a Harvard climate experiment called SCoPEx, which is seeking ways to dim the sun in an effort to slow the effects of climate change, social-media posts alleged that he personally found a way to block the sun, causing the Texas snow.

Carlson has been among right-wing pundits promoting misinformation related to the Texas snow, claiming that renewable energy was largely to blame for the state's electricity infrastructure failures. But in reality, the majority of energy sources that went off last week in the wake of the snowstorm ran on fossil fuels, as the Texas Tribune reported.