Bill Gates' daughter lost friends because of Covid vaccine theory

Bill Gates has been the subject of several conspiracy theories – including that he forces people to eat bugs and that he belongs to a race of shape-shifting lizards – but his daughter Phoebe has lost friendships due to the stories circulating about her father and Covid vaccines. “I even have friends who have dumped me because of these vaccine rumors,” she told her father in the new Netflix docuseries “What's Next? The Future with Bill Gates,” as People notes. Her comments were in reference to the debunked belief that Gates put microchips in the Covid vaccines to track people.

Bill remains optimistic about the online world and responded to his daughter's statement: “I don't know, I need to learn more because in my naivety I still believe that digital communication can be a force that brings us together and allows us to have a reasonable debate.”

Phoebe added that her father doesn't always understand “that on the internet, it's not really logic and facts that win.” “People want to escape from everyday life, they want to laugh, they want an exciting video, they want to be taken away from boring reality.”

The misinformation that has been spread about both Covid and the vaccines makes it “scary” to think about what could happen if “we have a pandemic 10 times worse,” the elder Gates continued, prompting his daughter to interrupt him, telling him, “Then they'll think you're causing it” if he predicts it on this show.

In an interview with CNET published Wednesday, Gates said he was once approached on the street by a woman who believed in the microchip conspiracy theory. He told her, “I really don't need to go after you specifically.”

Gates released his five-part documentary series “What's Next? The Future with Bill Gates” on Netflix last week. In the series, the Microsoft founder examines “the challenges and innovations that are shaping our world” – including misinformation.