Out of all the wealthiest american businessmen, Bill Gates and Michel Bloomberg are some of those I admire the most. They have spent an absolutely tremendous amount of money to support the World Health Organization and doctors around the world. Bloomberg used his personal fortune to support poor countries that were sued by tobacco companies.

However, it’s extremely important to remember HOW Mister William Henry III “Bill” Gates became worth $200 billion dollars. This man’s dream was to create a private sales tax on every single computer sold around the world.

“But I use Linux ! I’m not giving him my money”

Even if you use Linux, you still are. You eat food ? Your supermarket? Yeah, the supermarket companies pay billions of dollars for the right to use Microsoft Windows and Office. Your government? Yeah. They pay billions for the same. Your local university? Yeah. They must pay. You are paying. Directly or indirectly. Whether you like or not.

The United States once tried to dismantle Microsoft. The case was overwhelming.

How did Bill Gates save Microsoft from antitrust ? Read this articled that was originally published in 1999:

How Microsoft Sought Friends In Washington

Twenty months ago, Representative Billy Tauzin walked into the office of William H. Gates 3rd, chairman of Microsoft, bearing a 10 inch by 10 inch white box and a warning.

Mr. Tauzin, Republican of Louisiana and the chairman of a subcommittee that oversees the telecommunications industry, placed the box on Mr. Gates’s desk. Inside was a lemon meringue pie, a reminder of another pie that had been thrown in Mr. Gates’s face several weeks earlier by a Microsoft critic. The message to Mr. Gates, the richest man on earth and the leader of the digital world, was blunt: You need to make friends in Washington.

Mr. Gates apparently took Mr. Tauzin’s message to heart – with a vengeance. While Microsoft and its executives contributed a relatively modest $60,000 to Republican Party committees in 1997, those contributions shot up to $470,000 as part of the company’s overall political contribution of $1.3 million in 1998. The 1998 figure included donations to political candidates, with the bulk of the money going to Republicans. This year, the company’s contributions of nearly $600,000 have been more evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Mr. Gates and his top lieutenants have made dozens of trips to Washington, cultivating powerful figures in both parties and hiring some of the city’s priciest lobbyists. Microsoft has retained Haley Barbour, former chairman of the Republican National Committee; Vic Fazio, a former Democratic congressman from California; Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota; Tom Downey, a former Democratic congressman from New York and a close friend of Vice President Al Gore; Mark Fabiani, former special counsel to the Clinton White House; and Kerry Knott, former chief of staff to Representative Dick Armey of Texas, the House majority leader.

Microsoft has also given hundreds of thousands of dollars to research groups, trade groups, polling operations, public relations concerns and grass-roots organizations. It has financed op-ed pieces and full-page newspaper advertisements, and mounted a lobbying effort against an increase in the Justice Department’s antitrust enforcement budget.

In June, Mr. Gates met for lunch with the Republican leaders of the House in the small whip’s room off the House chamber. They discussed Microsoft’s public policy agenda, ranging from exports of encryption software to Internet privacy to antitrust actions, said several participants at the meeting. Mr. Knott, now a top official in Microsoft’s Washington office, attended the session.

Eight days later, Mr. Armey introduced what he called his ‘‘e-Contract,’’ a list of Republican legislative initiatives that pointedly adopted Microsoft’s view of the role of government antitrust actions, like the one that now threatens to dismantle Microsoft.

Microsoft has hired as two former heads of the Justice Department’s antitrust division and a dozen or more prominent academics and writers, who publish articles and give interviews advocating Microsoft’s position.

Among them are Charles Rule, director of the Justice Department’s antitrust division in the Bush administration, and Paul Rothstein, a professor of law at Georgetown University and frequent network and cable-television commentator.

Another Microsoft move on Capitol Hill drew criticism for heavy-handedness. Its lobbying to trim the antitrust division’s budget brought a flurry of editorial condemnation. The Washington Post said Microsoft’s actions were ‘‘a comical caricature’’ of a company trying to bully its way through Washington.‘’

One Justice Department official said, ‘‘Even the mob doesn’t try to whack a prosecutor during a trial.’’

https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/07/us/us-versus-microsoft-the-strategy-how-microsoft-sought-friends-in-washington.html