COVID-19 pandemic
There were also several conspiracy theories circulating about Bill Gates and his alleged involvement with the COVID-19 pandemic. Theories wrongfully linking Gates to the coronavirus were mentioned 1.2 million times on television or social media between February and April of 2020. One of the most prominent ones was that Bill Gates somehow created or engineered the virus as part of a plan to depopulate the world. There is no evidence to support this claim, and it has been debunked by numerous experts in the field and fact checking organizations including the the National Institutes of Health and Reuters. Some conspiracy theorists allege that Bill Gates is using the pandemic to profit from the development and distribution of vaccines and other medical treatments. While Gates has been heavily involved in funding research on vaccines and treatments for COVID-19, he has not personally profited from this work. In fact, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated over $2 billion to COVID-19 efforts since the start of the pandemic.