Bill Gates softens ‘Climate Disaster’ approach, says strategy needs to shift
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who wrote a book in 2021 titled, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,” now says leaders need to shift their approach to climate change.
In a letter published Tuesday ahead of next week’s COP30 U.N. climate summit, Gates argued that too many resources are focused on emissions and the environment, and that more money should go toward “improving lives” and curbing disease and poverty.
“… Climate is super important but has to be considered in terms of overall human welfare,” Gates told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin in an exclusive interview. “I didn’t pick that position because everybody agrees with it – it’s I think intellectually the right answer.”
In the letter, Gates called out the “doomsday view” of climate change and said leaders need to make a “strategic pivot” to focus on issues that have the “greatest impact on human welfare.”
“It’s the best way to ensure that everyone gets a chance to live a healthy and productive life no matter where they’re born, and no matter what kind of climate they’re born into,” he wrote.
Breakthrough Energy, Gates’ climate-focused investment fund, reportedly cut dozens of staffers earlier this year. The New York Times reported in March that the “change shows how Mr. Gates is retooling his empire for the Trump era.”
This year’s climate summit in Brazil comes nearly a decade after world leaders adopted the Paris Climate Agreement aimed at limiting temperature warming to 1.5 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Gates called that original goal unrealistic.
Over the last decade, the U.S. government has stepped in and out of the commitment depending on who’s in the White House.
The U.S. initially entered the agreement under President Barack Obama, before President Donald Trump pulled out of the pact when he took office for a first time in 2017. After President Joe Biden rejoined, Trump issued an executive order to again withdraw during his second term.
Gates said in 2017 that he was “deeply concerned” but “hopeful” that the U.S. would continue supporting innovation after Trump left the agreement.
Gates told Sorkin that pulling back on climate initiatives is a “huge disappointment,” but credited companies like Microsoft for investing in alternative energy technologies. Continued support of these innovations will bring down costs, he said.
Over the last decade, several major technology companies, including Meta, Alphabet and Microsoft have set 2030 targets to reach net-zero emissions or go carbon negative.
In February, Microsoft sustainability chief Melanie Nakagawa admitted that the “moon has gotten further away” from previous goals as the company doubles down on artificial intelligence.
“However, the force creating this distance from our goals in the short term is the same one that will help us build a bigger, faster, and more powerful rocket to reach them in the long term: artificial intelligence (AI),” she wrote.
The massive energy demand needed to meet growing data center power requirements has sparked concerns among many climate activists.
In terms of AI and concerns that a bubble has formed, Gates said many investments will be “dead ends.”
Still, he added, “If you want to be a tech company you don’t get to say no let’s check out of this race.”
Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta Platforms Inc., wears a pair of Meta Ray-Ban Display AI glasses during the Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, California, US, on Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Meta continues to sink money into the metaverse, anchored by virtual reality and augmented reality technologies.
The company reported third-quarter earnings on Wednesday and said that the Reality Labs division recorded an operating loss of $4.4 billion while generating $470 million in sales during the period.
Wall Street was expecting Reality Labs to post an operating loss of $5.1 billion on $316 million in revenue.
The Reality Labs unit is responsible for developing the company’s Quest-branded family of VR headsets and Ray-Ban and Oakley AI smart glasses that Meta develops in partnership with eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica.
The company’s Reality Labs division has now recorded over $70 billion in cumulative losses since late 2020, underscoring the high costs of building VR, AR and other consumer hardware.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in September revealed the $799 Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, which are the company’s first consumer-ready AI glasses that include a built-in display and an accompanying wristband with neural technology.
EssilorLuxottica said in its most recent earnings report earlier this month that those AI glasses helped lift its sales in the third quarter.
“Clearly there is a lift coming from Ray-Ban Meta wearables as a product category,” EssilorLuxottica CFO Stefano Grassi said during a third-quarter earnings call.
With Meta’s AI glasses becoming a surprise hit, investors have been monitoring for any signs that the company may be shifting its metaverse strategy.
Meta on Monday said that Vishal Shah, who was leading its metaverse initiatives, is now a vice president of AI products in the company’s Superintelligence Labs division that works on AI.
WATCH: Market volatility reflects AI trade anxiety ahead of Mag 7 earnings.
Bill McDermott, chief executive officer of ServiceNow Inc., during the Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, US, on Thursday, July 10, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
ServiceNow reported third-quarter results on Wednesday that blew past Wall Street’s estimates, with the company also approving a five-for-one stock split.
Shares rose 4% after the bell.
Here’s how the company did versus LSEG estimates.
- Earnings per share: $4.82 adjusted vs. $4.27 expected
- Revenue: $3.41 billion vs. $3.35 billion expected
Third-quarter subscription revenues, which account for the bulk of the enterprise software company’s sales, totalled $3.3 billion and surpassed a $3.26 billion estimate from StreetAccount. Overall revenues grew 22% from the year-ago period.
ServiceNow bumped up full-year guidance, saying it now expects subscription revenue to range between $12.84 billion and $12.85 billion for the year. Last quarter, the company raised FY guidance to a range of $12.78 billion to $12.80 billion.
Like many software companies, ServiceNow is benefitting from the artificial intelligence transformation that’s forcing more businesses to adopt the tools.
“Every enterprise in every industry is focused on AI as the innovation opportunity of our generation,” wrote CEO Bill McDermott in a release. He called the results the “clearest demonstration” that businesses are relying on ServiceNow for these capabilities.
Finance chief Gina Mastantuono told CNBC that the annual contract value for ServiceNow’s AI business is projected to surpass $500 million this year and on track toward the goal set at its investor day to reach $1 billion by 2026.
“The value AI is going to create in enterprise is like nothing that we’ve seen in a very, very long time,” she said. “We have real customers, it’s not just hype, and we have real values and we’re driving real outcomes for those customers.”
Net income hit $502 million, or $2.40 per share, up from $432 million, or $2.07 per share, during the same quarter in 2024. Current remaining performance obligations reached $11.35 billion.
ServiceNow said its fourth-quarter guidance accounts for ongoing U.S. government uncertainty and the recent shutdown. The company expects $3.42 billion to $3.43 billion in subscription revenues.
“Whenever the government reopens, the administration’s continued focus on cost efficiency and modernization aligns directly with our strengths,” she said, adding that ServiceNow’s U.S. federal business grew more than 30% in the third quarter.
ServiceNow’s board also approved a five-for-one stock split slated for the beginning of December. Mastantuono said the split will make shares accessible to more retail investors.
The stock is down about 13% year to date.
ServiceNow year-to-date stock chart.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks during a news conference following a meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee at the Federal Reserve on Oct. 29, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Alex Wong | Getty Images
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Wednesday that the artificial intelligence boom is different from the dotcom bubble of the late 1990s.
“This is different in the sense that these companies, the companies that are so highly valued, actually have earnings and stuff like that,” Powell said, during a news conference following the Fed’s two-day policy meeting.
AI investments in data centers and chips are also a major source of economic growth, he said. In the dotcom era, numerous companies raced to big valuations before going bankrupt due to hefty losses.
Powell didn’t name specific vendors, but chipmaker Nvidia has emerged as the world’s most valuable company, surpassing $5 trillion in market cap. The rally has been driven by the company’s graphics processing units, which are at the heart of AI models and workloads.
However, while Nvidia is generating big profits, high-valued startups OpenAI and Anthropic have been burning cash as they develop and expand their services.
OpenAI has racked up $1 trillion in AI deals of late, despite being set to generate only $13 billion in annual revenue. Anthropic, which is at a $7 billion revenue run rate, last week announced an estimated $50 billion cloud partnership with Google.
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