Trump still hasn’t appointed a science adviser — but he did offer the job to Bill Gates, who said it was “not a good use of my time.”
At a meeting between the president and Microsoft founder last month, Gates suggested to Trump that he actually appoint someone to lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. At this point, Gates told STAT, Trump asked Gates if he himself wanted the job. Gates did not.
Gates isn’t a scientist himself, but he is sort of… science-adjacent? His Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funds projects working on issues such as climate change and infectious disease. Trump has taken longer to fill the science adviser position than any other modern president, and so the de facto leader of the OSTP is a 31-year-old political scientist. Since the OSTP is supposed to help the president on issues related to environment, engineering, and technology, it seems like a political scientist might be the wrong type of scientist. But that’s not even the worst appointment in the Trump administration, considering he appointed an ExxonMobil CEO to be his Secretary of State and that his Department of Energy pick was a man who wanted to destroy the Department of Energy…