London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

How Bill Gates bankrolls the media outlet that claims it’s not backed by billionaires

How Bill Gates bankrolls the media outlet that claims it’s not backed by billionaires

It likes to tap its readers for donations by claiming it’s funded by them, not the mega-wealthy. But, in reality, billionaires have forked out millions to support the UK’s premier right-on, left-of-centre newspaper.

If you want to know what the ‘woke’ set are thinking – on issues from climate change to trans rights – The Guardian’s the newspaper to read. While its print sales have been in decline, falling over the past decade from 248,775 a day to 105,134 in July this year, The Guardian is one of the most visited news websites in the world.

The trouble is it keeps losing money. Four months ago, it was reported that the Guardian Media Group, which also owns The Observer, a closely related Sunday broadsheet, had lost over £10 million in the previous financial year, although that was still an improvement on the £17 million loss the year before. The Guardian doesn’t have a paywall in the same way as other newspapers, but does employ what computer types used to call ‘nagware’, constantly prompting users to sign up or to make donations.

However, it has made one rather spurious claim on social media in support of this strategy: “We’re not funded by billionaires. Our readers’ backing gives us the independence to hold the powerful to account – and we’re just getting started.”


Readers have certainly been generous. According to a Guardian story last year: “The Guardian now has more than one million subscribers and regular contributors, after support from online readers grew by 43% in a year. ... When one-off contributions are factored in, more than 1.5 million people have supported the Guardian in the past year.” A million subscribers at £5.99 per month would bring in about £6 million. That’s handy, but doesn’t even cover the paper’s losses, never mind its overall running costs.

However, as climate commentator Ben Pile has noted, billionaires love The Guardian and are very happy to put their hand in their pocket to support its projects. For example, according to US outlet MintPress News, a thorough sift through donations from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation shows The Guardian has received a cool $12,951,391 in support. In fact, Gates and his now ex-wife have sprayed hundreds of millions of dollars across the media landscape to support the kind of journalism they approve of.

But the Gateses aren’t the only billionaires supporting The Guardian. A quick look at its website’s philanthropy section shows that Aussie billionaire Judith Neilson’s institute funds The Guardian Australia’s Pacific Project. The Open Society Foundations, created by Hungarian billionaire George Soros, have backed Guardian projects on America’s environmental inequalities and on transforming care using AI. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, set up by the late co-founder of Hewlett-Packard in the 1960s, supported its work on the state of the oceans.

So the claim that The Guardian isn't funded by billionaires seems rather dubious. It's true that the Guardian Media Group is owned by the Scott Trust rather than by some self-serving media magnate. But the implication of its pitch to readers to cough up money is that anyone who is funded by the super-rich is owned by them, rather than the more reasonable assumption that organisations will seek funding to engage in endeavours such as specialist journalism that aren’t easily funded through other means. Indeed, Guardian writers have been quick to launch ad hominem follow-the-money attacks on other outlets when other journalists write things that aren’t simpatico with The Guardian’s worldview.

In an essay last year for the paper, Paul Vallely quite reasonably pointed to the tensions that come with billionaire philanthropy. “A lot of elite philanthropy is about elite causes. Rather than making the world a better place, it largely reinforces the world as it is. Philanthropy very often favours the rich – and no one holds philanthropists to account for it.” The World Health Organization, which made such a mess of tackling Covid-19, is now heavily funded by philanthropists such as Gates and media magnate Michael Bloomberg, skewing its priorities.

It’s no surprise that environmentalism is a favoured target for billionaire donations. There is no more elite project than telling the rest of us how we should live our lives. As the famous personages flying in and out of Glasgow for COP26 on private planes demonstrated, the wealthy love to demand action on climate change from the rest of us while continuing to live their gilded lives uninterrupted.

Both the press and public policy are too often skewed by the interests of the mega-rich. Media outlets, journalists, arts organisations and charities have long had to make pragmatic decisions about funding in order to do their work. It’s up to the rest of us to make our minds up about what we see and read. What sticks in the throat is The Guardian’s holier-than-thou attitude and misleading sales pitch to readers.

Even worse is the fact the UK’s most right-on newspaper when it comes to climate change has survived thanks to the buying and selling of cars. The enormous losses of the Guardian Media Group have been sustained by flogging its stake in used-car website Auto Trader back in 2014, making “between £600 million and £700 million” on the deal.

Perhaps The Guardian needs to save us the lectures and learn that famous lesson from the New Testament: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
Tens of Thousands of Young Chinese Get Up Every Morning and Go to Work Where They Do Nothing
×