Billionaire Bill Gates blasts capitalism saying that it's the reason why research for 'male baldness gets more funding than malaria'
Billionaire Bill Gates criticized capitalism saying that it causes fundraising efforts to go to trivial issues that bother rich people a opposed to global health epidemics that are devastating the poor.
The Microsoft founder was speaking at a conference about his latest philanthropic push to end malaria, saying that it gets slighted in terms of funding because the ones with the checkbooks are typically men in wealthy countries.
'The malaria vaccine in humanist terms is the biggest need. But it gets virtually no funding. But if you are working on male baldness or other things you get an order of magnitude more research funding because of the voice in the marketplace than something like malaria,' he said.
Tough talk: Bill Gates, who is worth $67billion, said that there are flaws in the capitalist system during a talk on malaria research (though he is pictured here earlier last week)
Wired Magazine reported the comment from the Royal Academy of Engineering's Global Grand Challenges Summit.
'Our priorities are tilted by marketplace imperatives,' Gates explained.
He said that the way to fix the disparity is to address this 'flaw in the pure capitalistic approach.'
The hypocrisy comes as Gates- who has long earned his title of the richest man in America- chose to take aim at the financial system that lead to his success.
Tough critics: Warren Buffett (left) and Richard Branson (right) have criticized capitalism in the past as well
To date, Gates is worth $67billion, and has dedicated the majority of his time since handing over day-to-day Microsoft operations in 2008 to the philanthropic foundation he runs with his wife Melinda.
His isn't the first billionaire to bash the ladder that they climbed up either.
The Huffington Post points out that Virgin magnate Richard Branson, filmmaker George Lucas and financial planners Warren Buffett and George Soros have all faulted the capitalist system for inequality.
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