Bill and Melinda Gates' divorce has shocked China, where the Microsoft (MSFT) co-founder has achieved a formidable level of fame unlike almost any other Western entrepreneur.
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The hashtag “Bill Gates' divorce” has more than 830 million views and 66,000 posts on the Chinese Twitter-like Weibo platform — far surpassing the 91 million views it received when Amazon (AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott split in 2019.
Weibo users are worried about everything from how the couple will divide their vast fortune to whether the divorce will affect Microsoft or their charitable foundation. Through their charitable organization, the couple has spent $53.8 billion on global health, poverty alleviation and other initiatives. Bill Gates is worth about $146 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and the couple has pledged to give a large portion of their wealth to charitable causes.
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"You and Melinda have helped people all over the world. Even if you won't be together in the future, I hope your foundation will continue to help more and more people," wrote a Weibo user, responding to a post by Bill Gates announcing the divorce in Chinese.
While Bill Gates no longer runs Microsoft, the company has spent decades building a good partnership with Beijing – its products have a significant presence in China.
And the business's success likely contributed to Bill Gates' personal rise: He now has more than 4.1 million fans on Weibo, surpassing Tesla CEO Elon Musk's and Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Even prominent tech figures in China joined the discussions taking place on Weibo: Kai-fu Lee – former head of Google (GOOGL) China, who helped found Microsoft Research Lab Asia, a hugely powerful network in China – said he found the news hard to believe.
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The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation established its Beijing office in 2007 and has since worked with the Chinese government on a variety of domestic programs. Bill Gates himself has visited China more than a dozen times since the 1990s and has cultivated friendly relations with top leaders.
Last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping wrote to Gates to thank him for his support in the fight against Covid-19. Gates was even hailed as an “old friend of the Chinese people” by the ruling Chinese Communist Party in 2018, a title the Party occasionally uses for foreigners it recognizes as having a deep friendship.
Meanwhile, on social media, some disappointed Chinese users even commented that the divorce had shaken their beliefs about marriage. The couple had been married for 27 years.
“Even you guys broke up,” one person said, responding to Bill Gates on Weibo. “How can the rest of us hope for a successful marriage?”
Source of information: edition.cnn.com
