American business magnate and philanthropist Bill Gates complained about people yelling at him for his contributions to COVID-19 vaccine research as he shut down conspiracies about tracking chips in vaccines and quipped that a Twitter owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk "could be worse."
In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today program, the Microsoft co-founder also said he maintains "a sense of humor" about the conspiracy theories that have led to people shouting at him on the street.
Gates, whose massive donations to COVID-19 research have made him a target of bizarre claims, said: "In some ways, you almost have to laugh because it’s so crazy.
"I mean, do I really want to track people? I spend billions on vaccines, I don’t make money on vaccines; vaccines save lives, they don’t cause deaths.
"So I’ve been out in public and some people yell at me that I’m tracking them, and that’s an awful thing."
Asked about whether such unfounded theories could flourish on Twitter after Musk’s planned purchase of the social media platform, Gates said: "I guess it’s possible Twitter could be worse, but it also could be better."
The tech pioneer said there is no need for his fellow billionaire, who has tweeted insults about him, "to be nice" to him.
Gates has been succeeded by Musk as the world's richest person.
In response to Musk’s claims that he has bet against Tesla stock, Gates said it had "nothing to do with climate change."
"The popularity of electric cars will lead to more competition for selling those cars, so there’s a difference between electric cars being adopted, and companies becoming infinitely valuable," he said.
Gates also said his divorce from Melinda French Gates would not affect the running of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest charitable foundation.
The pair announced they were ending their 27-year marriage last year.
French Gates has previously said she knew the late United States financier Jeffrey Epstein was "evil" and questioned why her ex-husband had meetings with him.
Gates said: "I made a mistake ever meeting with Jeffrey Epstein, you know, maybe her instincts on that were keener than mine.
"Any meeting I had with him could be viewed as almost condoning his evil behaviour, so that was a mistake."
Gates also said he would not follow fellow billionaires Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson into space and urged others to donate their wealth to charity.
"That’s not my dream. My dream is first to get polio eradicated and then dive right back in and go after malaria," he said.
"I’m going to encourage others who have been wildly successful like I’ve been to give back the right causes, I think philanthropy can achieve a lot."
Gates, whose new book, How to Prevent The Next Pandemic, has just been published, said the world will be "digging (its) way out” of the pandemic "for decades to come."
The philanthropist also warned: "It's very unlikely that we’ll go 20 more years without another outbreak that has a chance of becoming a global pandemic."
