Campaign

Melinda French Gates backs Biden in her first-ever presidential endorsement

by Tara Suter - 06/20/24 3:13 PM ET

Philanthropist Melinda French Gates poses for photographers at an event. — Michel Euler, Associated Press fle
Melinda French Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, poses for photographers at a gender equality conference at the Élysée Palace in Paris on July 1, 2021.

Melinda French Gates said Thursday she is endorsing President Biden in his reelection bid, the first time she has done so in an election.

“I’ve never endorsed a presidential candidate before,” the philanthropist said in a post Thursday on social platform X. “But this year’s election stands to be so enormously consequential for women and families that, this time, I can’t stay quiet.”

“Women deserve a leader who cares about the issues they face and is committed to protecting their safety, their health, their economic power, their reproductive rights, and their ability to freely and fully participate in a functioning democracy. In this election, the contrast couldn’t be greater, and the stakes couldn’t be higher,” she continued.

French Gates, the ex-wife of billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates, also linked to a Thursday opinion piece she wrote for CNN in which she discussed her reasons for supporting Biden.

“My work on gender equality and global health often requires me to work with leaders on both sides of the aisle, so I’ve avoided talking publicly about who I voted for in past elections,” French Gates said in the CNN piece.

“But this year is different.”

French Gates also asserts in her opinion piece that former President Trump’s “first term in office endangered the health of women, compromising their safety and robbing them of essential freedoms.”

“Nobody cares what Ms. Bill Gates has to say,” Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign said in an emailed statement to The Hill. “These people have an over-inflated sense of their supposed power and think their money to liberal causes can buy elections.”

In a recent interview with “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King, French Gates unveiled her intention to vote for the current president in the upcoming presidential election, stating that she “cannot vote for a man who rolls back women’s reproductive rights and says the heinous things that he says about women.”

“So, I absolutely am not voting for Trump, and I will vote for Biden.”

The Hill has reached out to the Biden campaign.

Updated at 3:53 pm.