Did Bill Gates Fund Gain-of-function Research?

No. Bill Gates says nobody has ever accused him or the Gates Foundation of being involved in any gain-of-function research. He calls the charge bizarre and had never heard it.

Nilay Patel put the claim to him from Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz, speaking on the All-In podcast. Horowitz compared Anthropic's safety research on artificial superintelligence to a story in which pandemic preparation, and gain-of-function research, created COVID-19. Gates had not heard the accusation. Patel treats the attack on safety work as the accelerationist response: discredit people who say there is a safety issue, push ahead, and expect the problem to work itself out. He had thought Horowitz shared the concerns almost everybody close to the technology has.