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No, Anthony Fauci wasn’t on Microsoft’s board of directors
If Your Time is short
- Microsoft says Anthony Fauci never served on the company’s board.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, are both prominent voices in public discourse about the COVID-19 pandemic, and regular targets of misinformation. One recent attack focuses on both men.
"I bet you didn’t know Dr. Fauci sat on Microsoft’s board of directors — and that Bill Gates — was his boss…" a Facebook post says.
It was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
That’s because Fauci is not on Microsoft’s 12-member board of directors, and according to Microsoft, he never has been.
We reviewed the company’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission going back to 1994 and Fauci is not mentioned.
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Searching for Fauci’s name on Microsoft’s website, we found citations of his work on Microsoft Academic, where people can search for scientific journal articles, but nothing connecting him to Microsoft’s board. We also didn’t find news coverage suggesting he served on Microsoft’s board when we searched Nexis news archives for articles about Fauci, the company and its board.
Scouring the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation website for Fauci’s name, we found a 2010 press release about "a collaboration to increase coordination across the international vaccine community and create a Global Vaccine Action Plan." Fauci was among five people named to the Decade of Vaccines Collaboration leadership council, which was formed to oversee the collaboration’s planning efforts, according to the press release.
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A 2003 Gates Foundation press release about a partnership with the National Institutes of Health said Fauci, among other scientists, was named to a scientific board to "guide and direct" an initiative to "identify critical scientific challenges in global health and increase research on diseases that cause millions of deaths in the developing world."
But we found nothing to corroborate what this Facebook post says, and Microsoft denies the claim.
We rate it False.
Our Sources
Facebook post, May 7, 2020
Microsoft board members, visited May 11, 2020
Microsoft Proxy filings, visited May 11, 2020
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Global health leaders launch Decade of Vaccines Collaboration, December 2010
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, $200 million grant to accelerate research on ‘grand challenges’ in global health, January 2003
Statement from Microsoft, May 8, 2020
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No, Anthony Fauci wasn’t on Microsoft’s board of directors
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