A viral animated video posted to Twitter Tuesday shows Microsoft CEO Bill Gates's astronomical wealth compared with middle-class salaries, the wealth of other considerably rich Americans, and a number of major public services which Gates could easily pay for using just a tiny fraction of his assets.
According to the data cited by the user who created the graphic, Gates--who with a fortune of over $110 billion recently reclaimed his title as the world's richest person--could easily pay to replace all of the damaged water pipes in Flint, Michigan, cover all the medical costs desperate Americans crowd-source in a year using platforms like GoFundMe, and still have nearly $100 billion leftover.
"I struggled to imagine this huge number," @betty__cam wrote of Gates's wealth, "so I animated some bar graphs that put it in proportion with other points of reference. The scale is quite stark."
Watch:
As the $55 million needed to repair Flint's water system and the $650 million Americans gather for medical bills on GoFundMe each year appear in the graphic the bar signifying Gates's $110 billion is still too tall to fully fit in the animation.
The user animated the graph two weeks after Gates expressed concern in an interview over a plan from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to impose a 2% annual wealth tax on wealth over $50 million and a 6% tax on assets over $1 billion.
"You know, when you say I should pay $100 billion, okay, then I'm starting to do a little math about what I have left over," Gates said. "So you really want the incentive system to be there and you can go a long ways without threatening that."
According to a calculator on Warren's campaign website, with his current assets Gates would be required to pay $6.5 billion in taxes under her Ultra-Millionaires Tax plan.
Other critics on social media have offered other data points showing Gates's wealth compared to most Americans'.
"You'd have to save more than a $100,000 per year for a MILLION years to get there," tweeted Texas congressional candidate Donna Imam last week. "So where's that wealth tax?"
