Rob Finnerty didn’t mince words on his Newsmax program when he warned Americans that Bill Gates isn’t merely “playing king” over public policy — he’s “playing God.” Conservatives who’ve watched the tech oligarch leverage money and influence across global health and climate know exactly what Finnerty meant: an unelected billionaire using private cash to bend public decisions while skipping democratic accountability.
The uncomfortable facts behind that blunt critique are not new. Gates met multiple times with Jeffrey Epstein, later calling those encounters a “huge mistake,” and reporters have documented meetings and travel ties that raise legitimate questions about judgment and judgment calls at the very top of philanthropy. The American people deserve answers about why a man with enormous sway over vaccines, energy policy, and nascent climate technologies consorted with a convicted sex offender whose business was secrecy and leverage.
Even more chilling: reporting has suggested Epstein attempted to use what he knew to blackmail Gates years later — an allegation revealed in the Wall Street Journal’s reporting and widely picked up by major outlets. Whether or not Gates paid a price, the episode exposes how dangerous it is when power, money, and secretive networks mix outside the light of public scrutiny. Trust in our institutions erodes when private influence can be so easily weaponized.
The Gates model of influence goes beyond friendships and lapses in judgment. For more than a decade his personal funds have seeded controversial geoengineering research and a private fund to back climate projects, including work at Harvard and other elite institutions. That’s not mere charity — it’s patronage of experimental schemes to tinker with the planet’s atmosphere, and reasonable Americans should recoil at the idea of one man underwriting unilateral experiments that could change rainfall patterns or food yields for millions.
On global health, Gates’ footprint is massive and undeniable: his foundation is a leading partner in Gavi and other vaccine initiatives that have redistributed vast resources and shaped which technologies and countries get priority. No one doubts the good that vaccines have done, but it’s fair to debate whether critical public-health decisions should be shaped so heavily by private philanthropy rather than accountable, elected officials representing the people. The concentration of influence demands oversight, not hero worship.
Conservative Americans must remind themselves that liberty depends on institutions that are transparent and accountable. When the richest men on earth quietly bankroll policy laboratories, set research agendas, and hobnob with morally compromised figures, it’s not just politics — it’s a warning sign. We should welcome innovation, but we must insist that experiments that affect entire populations be subject to democratic checks and public debate, not private whims and secret meetings.
If conservatives and patriots want America to remain a self-governing republic, we need full disclosure: congressional hearings, press scrutiny, and clear ethical rules about when private money can influence public priorities. Call it scrutiny, not envy — democracy isn’t a charity event where the winners pick the rules. The Finnerty segment is a reminder that when power is centralized in unaccountable hands, ordinary Americans have every right to ask who is deciding our future and why.
