A photograph of Bill Gates being interviewed on a television program and exchanging a gift box with the presenter is circulating on social networks. Some posts on Facebook are accompanied by a text that states that the millionaire is giving the journalist a blank check to teach her a lesson on “the secret of his success.” However, it is not true.
As can be seen in the recording of the original interview, which corresponds to a broadcast of the program this morning of 2016, is Bill Gates does not give a blank check to the journalist, but receives the gift: a mug with the logo of the program.
In addition, from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation they denied the viralized story about the blank check and described it as an “urban legend”, as the media reported at the time. USAToday.
Source: ‘This Morning’
The hoax of Bill Gates and the check to the journalist circulates since 2016
Posts on social networks with this image say that the founder of Microsoft allegedly offered journalist Holly Willoughby a blank check, urging her to write a number on it.
After the repeated rejection of the presenter of this morning, Gates would have explained to him, according to the hoax, that the secret of his own success is not to lose opportunities (like the one that she, in theory, just let go). “The difference between you and me is that I see opportunities in everything and you saw everything except an opportunity,” the text concludes.
Bill Gates, subject of conspiracies
This hoax has been denied by media verifiers such as Reuters, The Republic, Polygraph Y Factual AFPthe latter member of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), as well as Newtral.es. It has been circulating on networks since at least 2016 and has even been spread on Arab, Portuguese and korean.
It is not the first time that Bill Gates has been the protagonist of hoaxes. At Newtral.es we have verified other false publications about this millionaire, such as the one attributed to him having saying that his daughter is not going to marry a poor man and other which ensures that it has announced the end of mobile phones and their replacement by electronic tattoos.
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Bill Gates does not offer a blank check to a journalist in this image, but instead receives a mug