• Phoebe Gates discussed conspiracy theories about Bill Gates in a new Netflix documentary series.
• These theories, often linking him to COVID-19, have affected her personal relationships.
• Phoebe, a Stanford graduate, outlined the challenge of sharing accurate public health information.

Conspiracy theories about billionaire Bill Gates have run rampant online for years, sometimes spilling from the sphere of the internet into his daily life.

Many of the most pervasive of these conspiracy theories have linked him to COVID-19. One popular unsubstantiated claim is that the COVID-19 pandemic was a cover to allow the Microsoft cofounder to put microchips in vaccines to track people.

Now, Phoebe Gates, the youngest daughter of Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, has said these rumors have even damaged some of her personal relationships.

Phoebe is the cofounder of Phia, a digital fashion platform. She is an outspoken social activist, sharing her views on reproductive rights and gender equality with her followers on social media.

In Netflix’s latest documentary series about the Microsoft billionaire, “What’s Next? The Future With Bill Gates,” which premiered on September 18, he asks the 22-year-old if she has ever come across the conspiracy theories about him.

“All the time,” she answered, “I’ve even had friends cut me off because of these vaccine rumors.”

She continued to say that, as a public health graduate at Stanford University, she is concerned about effectively communicating accurate health information.

“I need to learn more because I naively still believe that digital communication can be a force to bring us together, to have reasonable debate,” her father responded.

Phoebe Gates said one thing her father did not understand about social media is that facts and logic are not as important to people as finding an escape from everyday reality.

Gates then asked his daughter where conspiracy theories, such as his involvement with COVID-19 vaccines, actually come from. For Phoebe Gates, they arise from a place of fear.

During the various lockdowns, no one knew who to trust or what to believe, she said.

“The pandemic was definitely social media at its worst, oversimplifying things,” her father said.

Gates has previously said that he’s come to laugh about the conspiracy theories about him.

“You got to have a sense of humor,” he told the BBC earlier this year. “When people say that I want to track everyone — why do I want to track everyone?”