According to the Land Report, Bill Gates is now the largest landowner in America. Although his prominent position as the richest man in the world has been occupied by other technology billionaires, such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, that hasn’t stopped him from buying more than 242,000 acres of agricultural land in 19 states.
Gates’ largest farms are in Louisiana and Arkansas, where he has a combined total of 116,998 acres in those areas alone. His purchases of farmland began in 2014, when he already had at least 100,000 acres of farmland, but his most recent land purchase went to a 14,500-acre area in Horse Heaven Hills for a price of $ 171 million.
While it is uncertain, many are deducing that the amount of land is for future use by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with regard to sustainable agriculture and agricultural support for countries in need. Marketwatch comments that although Bill Gates owns most of America’s agricultural land, he does not own most of the land. That title goes to John Malone, who owns more than 2.2 million acres of land in America.
In other news, Microsoft joins Oracle and Salesforce to develop digital COVID-19 vaccination cards.