American billionaire and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates (pictured left) visited Brussels last week. Whilst here, he met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and several European Commissioners. He also took some time out to visit the Brussels Atomium.
“It was a great pleasure and a real honour to welcome Bill Gates to the Atomium,” Geoffroy Coomans de Brachène, chair of the Atomium charity and a member of the Brussels Parliament, posted on social media.
On Wednesday 21 October, the Microsoft founder spent 25 minutes at the Atomium. According to Coomans de Brachène, those 25 minutes were “filled with fascinating discussions about the future of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, innovation and science”.
“Almost 70 years on, the Atomium still embodies that wonderful conviction that science and progress can contribute to a better world,” Coomans de Brachène said. News website EU Debates also wrote enthusiastically about Gates’s visit to the European institutions: “He is a clever man who knows that listening can be at least as important as speaking.”
Three years ago, Gates visited the Sewer Museum in Brussels. He is also unlikely to forget his visit to Brussels in 1998. At the time, a group of Brussels activists threw cream tarts at him in a protest against his immense global wealth, corporate power and the growing influence of big tech. Four of them hit Gates in the face.