Gates’ connection to the U.S. detention and deportation machine is a company called Signature Aviation. Signature calls itself “the world’s largest network of private aviation terminals,” and it’s a linchpin in the day-to-day machinery of Trump’s immigration enforcement apparatus.

The private firm that holds Gates’ and the Gates Foundation Trust’s assets, Cascade Investment, increased its stake in the company to 30% in 2021, when it and two partners bought Signature outright for $4.7 billion. Human rights advocates — plane trackers and activists who keep tabs on deportation flights, as well as the aviation and logistics companies profiting from them — say Gates’ stake in Signature is at odds with his humanitarian work, including the Gates Foundation’s support of a plethora of immigration-focused nonprofits. Without FBOs like Signature, they say, Trump’s mass deportation agenda would be stuck on the ground.

Gates himself has not publicly commented on Signature Aviation’s crucial role in servicing ICE Air flights. Neither the Gates Foundation nor Cascade Asset Management Company, which oversees Cascade Investment, responded to multiple requests for comment.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250910112339/https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bill-gates-trump-ice-signature-aviation_n_68acd96fe4b0d17ae21e7ec4

    • ExtremeDullard@piefed.social
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      19 hours ago

      Nah. Cynicism would be me saying the Gates Foundation does good, and you saying mostly to Gates.

      But you’re simply acknowledging what’s obvious to anybody who knows anything about how the rich keep themselves rich at the expense of everybody else. That’s realism, if anything.