- Melinda French Gates emphasizes that billionaires shouldn’t be seen as a monolith and that not every business titan needs a massive audience to demonstrate the value of their work. She also prioritized giving her children a grounded upbringing by having them use her maiden name in school and ensuring they experienced a sense of normalcy despite their family’s immense wealth.
Melinda French Gate’s ex-husband might be one of the most famous entrepreneurs on the planet, but she doesn’t believe that being a billionaire automatically consigns an individual to a certain stereotype.
President Trump’s inauguration demonstrated that something of an alliance was forming between some of the world’s richest men.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and head of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) stood beside Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, who himself was shoulder-to-shoulder with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Beside Bezos and his partner Lauren Sanchez was Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. Apple’s Tim Cook was also in attendance.
Notably missing from the line-up of Magnificent 7 bosses and founders was Gates, as well as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Nvidia founder Jensen Huang.
In the run-up to and days since Trump’s inauguration, some of the most powerful men on the planet have rallied around the White House. Others, like Gates, have met with the President but have also cautioned the Oval Office.
In a time of “masculine energy” at Meta and bromances between former Big Tech rivals, French Gates told Elle this week that billionaires shouldn’t be seen as a single entity.
When asked about the message being sent to the public by the coalition of tech titans, French Gates said: “I think it’s really important to not see billionaires as a monolith.
“And not all of them need to stand on a stage to talk about or to demonstrate what they’re doing.”
This might be news to the world’s richest man, Musk, who frequently found himself on stage during Trump’s presidential campaign.
More recently, Musk shared headline spots with Argentina’s President Javier Milei, who wielded a chainsaw on stage in Washington D.C.
French Gates drew criticism from Musk for her support of former President Biden, but isn’t alone in being the ex-wife of a billionaire denounced by the SpaceX founder.
Musk has also criticized the work of Mackenzie Scott, who was previously married to Bezos, calling aspects of her philanthropic work “concerning.”
French Gates’s philanthropic work focuses on supporting and empowering women and girls around the world, and added it’s important to have equality throughout every echelon of power.
She explained: “Men make certain decisions—not necessarily bad decisions, but decisions based on their lens on society, right?”
Growing up with the Gates name
With Bill Gates worth an estimated $162 billion and French Gates worth an estimated $30 billion, it might have been easy for their children to lose sight of what reality looks like for the general public.
To make sure their children didn’t fall foul of seeing their lives as part of a billionaires club, French Gates established some practices to give her offspring a more normal childhood.
This began in elementary school, with her three children using her maiden name ‘French’ as their surname.
By middle school, her kids were old enough to pick the moniker they went under. French Gates revealed her eldest daughter, Jennifer, chose to use her father’s surname in middle school, adding “she felt she was ready to take that name on.”
The couple’s son, Rory, stuck with the surname French throughout middle and high school.
French Gates explained: “I just tried to keep them in the real world and point things out to them as much as possible. We had real discussions about how our family was different, but you shouldn’t think any more of yourself because of that.”
This included keeping billionaire tech titan Gates out of the limelight at the start of the academic year.
French Gates encouraged her former husband to do the school drop-off, commencing from the third week of term, so her children had time to settle in before their billionaire philanthropist father appeared at the bus line.
“We got about two weeks where we were just ‘the Frenches.’ People saw that we were normal,” she explained.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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