William (Bill) H. Gates, founder, technology advisor of Microsoft Corporation visits The Department of Energy on October 8, 2013. (PHOTO CREDIT: DOE PHOTOGRAPHER, KEN SHIPP)
Charge 3X as Much as Normal
From President Joe Biden:
And I’m about to sign the Inflation Reduction Act into law, one of the most significant laws in our history. Let me say from the start: With this law, the American people won and the special interests lost. The American people won and the special interests lost.
Bill Gates is one of many billionaires/millionaires cheering the Democrats’ spending plan. Mr. Gates, (according to Forbes: worth $115 billion) is betting big on solar/wind energy and battery technology, reports James Freeman in the WSJ.
Other billionaires or even mere millionaires who bet big on solar and wind energy and battery technology should enjoy a nice Biden bump.
The billionaire Microsoft founder’s involvement in pushing these subsidies could find the Biden administration wrapped up in a Clinton-esque “Billgate” scandal.
Cementing in Profits
Bloomberg continues:
… innovations that start in university labs often need even more government support to reach mass adoption, according to the way Gates sees things. Take a startup making carbon-free cement — success means bringing to market a product that’s as much as three times as expensive as normal cement.
This is no hypothetical for Gates. His investments through Breakthrough Energy, the Gates organization that does climate work, has sunk at least tens of millions into green cement startups such as Ecocem, Chement and Brimstone. None have yet reached commercial scale. He saw the bankruptcy filing of a battery startup he backed, Aquion, that might have had a fighting chance if energy-storage tax credits were available.
Turning a Losing Investment into a Winner
Hard to think of a worthier cause for taxpayers than trying to turn such losing investments into winners, continues Mr. Freeman.
To be fair, Mr. Gates was hardly the only person advocating for the enactment of the giant subsidy bonanza. Alternative-energy companies, union bosses and executives at numerous nonprofit organizations also helped campaign for a big tax-and-spending hike.
Bloomberg’s Mr. Rathi and Ms. Dlouhy note:
Two weeks of throw-everything-at-the-wall lobbying paid off. On July 27, Schumer and Manchin unveiled more than $37 billion in annual spending over the next decade on climate and energy.
Perhaps Joe Biden had trouble with his teleprompter on Tuesday, offers Mr. Freeman. Perhaps Biden meant to say that “special interests won” and “the American people lost.”
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