Bill Gates interferes in the wealth issue and wants to tax the rich

Bill Gates said that if he redesigned the U.S. tax system, billionaires like himself would be significantly less wealthy.

On the Netflix show “What's Next? The Future with Bill Gates,” the Microsoft co-founder said it was a “weird thing” to “have people who are worth a billion, ten billion, a hundred billion.”

“Under the tax system that I would support, the rich would have, say, a third as much money,” Gates said in a subsequent conversation with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

Sanders, meanwhile, said he would “go much further.”

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Gates' recent comments on taxes are similar to those he made to The Independent in early September.

“If I designed the tax system myself, I would be tens of billions of dollars poorer than I am now,” he said. “The tax system could be more progressive without significantly damaging the incentive to do fantastic things.”

He also told the outlet that he was in favor of the inheritance tax.

Gates also said he believes the world would be better off if billionaires “voluntarily decided to give more money” and that wealthy individuals should donate money to help fight inequality.

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“That's a huge amount of wealth, and if you even tried to consume it, that would be kind of absurd,” Gates said of billionaires. “You want the money to give back to society, not just be consumed. In a rich country like the U.S., the fact that there are still deprivations shows that our social safety net is not as well funded as we would like it to be. But I don't think banning wealth above a certain size is the right way to go.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates speaks during an event marking the 20th anniversary of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief at the United States Institute of Peace on February 24, 2023 in Washington, DC (Alex Wong/Getty Images/Getty Images)

Gates pledged in 2022 to donate “virtually all” of his wealth to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He founded the foundation, which focuses on global health, development, gender equality and other issues, in 2000 with his then-wife Melinda French Gates.

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Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates reacts during a visit by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to Imperial College University on February 15, 2023 in London. (Photo by Justin Tallis – WPA Pool/Getty Images / Getty Images)

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He and French Gates are also two of the co-founders of the Giving Pledge, along with Warren Buffett, the long-time CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. The initiative has more than 240 signatories and calls on them to donate a large portion of their wealth.

There are over 2,700 billionaires in the world, including Gates, whose personal fortune is estimated at $138.6 billion according to Forbes.

FOX Business' Breck Dumas contributed to this report.