President Trump took a victory lap after billionaire Bill Gates lowered the temperature on his global-warming activism by walking back his warnings of climate catastrophe.
Mr. Trump, who has long dismissed the climate-change narrative as “hoax” and a “con job,” offered Mr. Gates a pat on the back as well as an “I told you so.”
“I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax,” said Mr. Trump in a Wednesday post on Truth Social. “Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue. It took courage to do so, and for that we are all grateful. MAGA!!!”
Mr. Gates, who has devoted billions to climate-change initiatives, stunned the world with his Tuesday memo calling for shifting resources from reducing global temperatures to improving human health and prosperity ahead of next month’s U.N. Climate Change Conference, known as COP30.
“Although climate change will have serious consequences — particularly for people in the poorest countries — it will not lead to humanity’s demise,” said Mr. Gates in his post, “Three Tough Truths About Climate.” “People will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future.”
His call for a pivot from the “doomsday outlook” met with a mixed reaction on the right. Some prominent climate skeptics joined Mr. Trump in cheering Mr. Gates’ new approach, while others decried the trillions spent on efforts to lower fossil-fuel emissions in the name of reducing global temperatures.
“That shift to common sense is welcome, but it comes after decades of fearmongering that harmed young people, stalled development, and punished dissenting scientists,” said former climate activist Lucy Biggers in The Free Press.
Mr. Gates has been a major player on the climate front for years. He founded Breakthrough Energy, which seeks to accelerate clean-energy development, and laid out a plan for achieving zero emissions in his 2021 book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.”
He funded a project by Harvard University scientists seeking to deflect heat from the sun by injecting calcium-carbonate dust into the atmosphere, prompting alarm from other scientists who called it too risky.
Conservative economist Stephen Moore said “I almost fell out of my chair” when he saw Mr. Gates’ memo.
“Look, I have a great deal of respect for Bill Gates, he’s one of the greatest businessmen who ever walked on the planet, but also I have respect for him for basically admitting that he was wrong and that he listened to a lot of the wrong people,” Mr. Moore, founder of Unleash Prosperity, said on Fox Business.
🚨 JUST NOW: President Trump officially declares he has WON the “war on the climate change hoax”
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 29, 2025
”Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue. It took courage to do so, and for that we are all grateful. MAGA!!!”
Yet another issue the left lost on.… pic.twitter.com/lNz8i1SlKo
Marc Morano, who runs the climate-skeptical website Climate Depot, said he believes that Mr. Gates and others backtracking on the doomsday scenarios are “reading the room.”
He cited recent moves by European leaders to soften their emissions targets. Closer to home, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has discarded green-energy policies from the previous administration in favor of fossil fuels.
Even New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, has put the brakes on meeting climate targets over concerns about high energy prices.
In September, Mr. Trump denounced green-energy policies and ripped the climate-change narrative as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly.
“Donald Trump was sworn in in January and completely demolished the entire global climate agenda,” said Mr. Morano. “[He] capped off with that phenomenal speech face to face with the U.N. General Assembly in New York just trashing the whole climate agenda, mocking them.”
He said that “Bill Gates realizes there’s been no pushback, and this was a dead end.”
Meanwhile, climate-change activists raised doubts about Mr. Gates’ expertise on the issue.
“I stopped listening to Bill Gates talk about climate change a long time ago. You should stop too,” said Jonathan Foley, executive director of the climate group Project Drawdown, on Bluesky.
In May, Mr. Gates announced that he plans to wind down the Gates Foundation by 2045 after giving away “virtually all my wealth.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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