this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025

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Bill Gates Is Playing Both Sides of the Climate Crisis. (jacobin.com)

submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Bill Gates presents himself as a climate champion, but his trust has actually increased its fossil fuel investments since his divestment pledge. It's just the latest example of the billionaire appointing himself to solve problems he helps perpetuate.

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[–] [email protected] 73 points 3 days ago

Na, he's only playing the one side - his own. Always has, always will. All billionaires do, that's how they ended up that way.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 3 days ago

There’s no such thing as an ethical billionaire.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 3 days ago

Wow, so the vicious thieving robber-baron who has promoted himself as a champion of the people is actually a two-faced liar?

Colour me shocked.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 days ago

Thats not news he did that for years and its 90+% fossil investments vs renewables

[–] oakey66 23 points 3 days ago

This was painfully obvious when he was confronted by a journalist over the fact that GenAI was boiling the planet alive and he said that we will figure out the climate crisis later. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jun/27/ai-bill-gates-climate-targets-datacentres-energy

[–] Sanctus 22 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Everyone drop what you're doing right now and just go read about the Sultans of Caves of Qud. Grand tales, obituaries a mile long strewn with deeds. In actuality they were fragmented warlords who didnt get much done, but if you looked at their tombs you'd think they were gods. This is exactly that; powerful people trying to prove their shit doesnt stink through propaganda.

[–] johsny 5 points 3 days ago

Unexpectedqud

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago

[–] timewarp 4 points 3 days ago

The people that love Gates are the same ones that love unchecked corporate power.

[+] Blue_Morpho -13 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Owning stocks in oil companies has nothing to do with funding oil companies. The money doesn't go to the oil company.

It's like buying a used DVD. The film industry doesn't get any money from your purchase.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It does if the company issues new shares...

[–] Blue_Morpho 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

When was the last time Exxon Mobile issued new shares? I searched for quite a bit and couldn't find anything. ( A stock spit isn't issuing new shares.)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Them specifically have been buying back shares.

[–] Blue_Morpho 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That's the opposite of issuing shares. They are paying market price to remove shares. So buying their stock and raising the stock price costs them more money when they buy back shares.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

While increasing their market value... you do understand basic economics?

[–] Blue_Morpho -1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Buying back shares doesn't increase market value. It raises an individual share price. The market cap remains unchanged. Given that they lost money, it can cause the market cap to decline because they have less cash after buying the shares. The company doesn't get any money.

You claimed buy back was an example of a company getting money based on their stock price. But it's the opposite. It's a company spending money to buy their own shares. They don't get money. They lose money. It's similar to paying a dividend.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

And why would a company want to buy pack? Who is getting the money? The investors. who owns the company?.... the investors. So quite literally the company is getting the money generated by profits. And buying pack is reducing the amount of shares making the investors more wealthy by increasing their proportion of ownership.

[–] Blue_Morpho -1 points 3 days ago

Yes buying back makes investors more wealthy at the cost of the company's cash. Like I said, it's similar to a dividend in that the company is giving money to the investors. Instead of cash which is taxable, they are giving their cash in the form of stock value to the investors.

The company does not get any cash from a buy back. They are spending money. The company has less money after a buy back. The market cap is technically unchanged but can go down afterwards because the company has lost money buying back the shares.

Losing money on a buy back is not an example of a company making money from the value of their stock.

[–] Couldbealeotard 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Theoretically someone with a lot of money could buy a large percentage of a company's shares, become a major shareholder, and then vote on company resolutions. If anything, owning shares gives you power to change the company.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

These are for profit public companies, they are legally required to prioritize profits over anything else. Even if you had a controlling stake if you tried to push through something that would decrease profits, like lowering fossil fuel production, or even adding expensive carbon capture methods that would cut into the bottom line, the rest of the shareholders could sue you.

[–] Couldbealeotard 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You're talking bullshit.

You have voting weight proportional to how much stock you hold. You are the shareholder. There's no legal obligations for companies to prioritise profits over anything else.

Stop with the fear mongering and hyperbole.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Public for profit companies have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value. When you issue shares of a company you are signing a contract to put the companies needs over anything else when administering the company.

If it just worked off proportional representation like you imagine then the majority shareholder could unilaterally sell the company off to themselves for pennies or do self dealing to enrich themselves at the companies expense. No one would ever invest in a company because they could never be sure their interests would be met unless they had a controlling stake.

Companies need a goal in order to judge the administration by and to be able to call foul if they stray from that goal to pursue personal interests. For most public companies that is profit, and if you stray from that goal for your own personal interests, even if it's a noble one like preventing climate change, the other shareholders can sue you for that. They didn't sign up for your personal moral ambitions, they signed up to make money and they have a contract that says so.

If you want to pursue things other than profit you can register as a public benefit corporation which can consider things like climate change in there decision making process without risking a lawsuit from shareholders. This changes the agreement between the shareholder and the company so the shareholder knows that they aren't going to make the most money at all costs. None of the major oil companies are registered that way though.

Read up on the duty of loyalty here before calling bs and thinking you can change big oil from within

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Owning a stock keeps the price high though as you're restricting supply, and it looks like his trust has also bought more shares so it's increasing the demand as well.

A high stock price doesn't fund the industry directly, unless it's a smaller company that's still issuing stock which he also seems to be invested in a lot of those. It does increase the power of the industry though. If a lot of people divested from fossil fuels that would lower the value of the stock and the net worth of the principal owners. Those principal owners are currently using their money to bribe politicians into ignoring the climate crisis and to increase fossil fuel extraction. If they had less money to do that, then it'd be a lot easier to pass legislation to address climate change.

He also seems to be buying bonds in the industry as well which is more directly funding the industry. Also, a high stock price allows the companies to get more bonds at a cheaper rate, so that also helps to fund the industry.

All of this is also missing the main point of the article in that bill gates is profiting from the fossil fuel industry and has a stake in seeing it continue, while pretending he's a champion for climate change.