Reprinted with permission from MediaMatters

Far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has placed Microsoft cofounder and philanthropist Bill Gates at the center of a coronavirus-related globalist depopulation plot that Jones has suggested could be staved off if Gates is executed.

Gates is one of the most prominent public figures targeted by right-wing conspiracy theorists throughout the novel coronavirus pandemic. Over the last several decades, Gates has had major involvement in public health efforts, notably in the field of vaccinations. He has also been one of the more prominent voices warning about the possibility of a major global pandemic. More recently, Gates has pledged significant funding to the effort to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus.

Jones, a leading figure in the anti-vaccine movement, has seized on Gates' efforts in order to push a conspiratorial message.

Alex Jones' overarching Bill Gates conspiracy theory

Jones' overarching conspiracy theory about Gates has many threads, but this is the broad contour: Gates, acting as the public face of a plot by globalist elites to depopulate the earth, created and released the novel coronavirus, spurring efforts to create a vaccine that will then be used by globalists to sterilize or kill the most of the earth's population.

Jones began targeting Gates with coronavirus-related conspiracy theories as early January, when there were few reported coronavirus cases in the U.S. In a video posted January 27 to Infowars' streaming platform Banned.video, Jones called Gates "the chief science officer of the private corporate world government" who was helping globalists "carry out and execute this covert sterilization depopulation plan." Jones based his claims on Gates' participation in "The Next Pandemic," a November 2019 episode of the Netflix seriesExplained, which Jones claimed showed that he and his wife, Melinda Gates, are "trying to terrify you into accepting forced inoculation in the name of protecting your health, when in truth, vaccines have been proven to lower immunity in most cases, to be filled with cancer viruses and other pathogens, and to be a scourge from the technocrats, from the eugenicists in the last 60 to 70 years."

Jones has subsequently built on his Gates conspiracy theory. Here are some of his specific claims from recent weeks:

• April 9: Jones claimed that the development of an invisible tattoo to track childhood vaccinations, which received funding from Gates' foundation, has the actual goal of allowing globalists to "track everything you do" as part of a "depopulation cult."
• April 21: Claiming that the novel coronavirus "is a manufactured virus," Jones said, "It's going to chew your testicles off, I mean, that's what Bill Gates wants to do, he wants to reduce your fertility." Jones added that, "They're coming for your fertility, they're coming for your balls." Later during his broadcast, Jones said, "You know who made that virus and who cooked it up? Bill Gates, baby. Leads right back to that smiley piece of garbage." Jones also claimed that Bill and Melinda Gates "patented" the novel coronavirus in order to insert microchips or other objects into every person on earth so that they can be bought and sold by globalists.
• April 24: Jones claimed that Gates is "murdering me and my family, he's killing me, he's killing my children and he thinks it's funny," adding, "If I've got to die so that he can't go on killing everybody, that's fine. And I want him to know that." Jones went on to claim that Gates is "in charge of the planet" and that he is creating vaccines that are "reprogramming systems for your whole damn body."
• April 27: Jones described the historical background of the conspiracy he alleges Gates is involved in, saying, "All the big old money is behind Gates, he's the robber barons, the Nazis, all these dead people put everything they had into this little piece of crap." Jones went on to describe Gates as the "placeholder" for the arrival of the Antichrist, calling him "Satan's benchwarmer."

At its video platform banned.video, Infowars has posted numerous videos from Jones and other Infowars personalities conspiratorially attacking Gates. Representative examples include:

• "THE NAZI ORIGINS OF A BILL GATES-BACKED SHUTDOWN - FULL SHOW 4/27/2020"
• "Bill Gates Mastermind Behind Real Supervillain Death Cult"
• "World Shocked by Bill Gates' Global Collapse Blueprint"
• "Sterilization, Paralysis, Autoimmune: The Crimes of Bill Gates"
• "Bill Gates & Anthony Fauci Knew About Coronavirus For Years And Prepared To Make Themselves Rich And Powerful"
• "SHOCK VIDEO! Bill Gates Admits To Depopulation Plan Amid Coronavirus Outbreak"

Jones uses violent rhetoric when talking about Gates and other "globalists"

Jones has woven in violent rhetoric to his coronavirus conspiracy theories about Gates and others. During his April 13 broadcast, Jones said, "If we're this selfish of a society, then fine, just burn it all down. But I want Bill Gates and others to walk to the plank first."

He went on to ask, "What do you think Bill Gates does?" before suggesting that "collaborators" in the coronavirus outbreak should be rounded up and killed in the same way, Jones claimed, that U.S. Marines rounded up 10-15,000 Nazi collaborators in 1941 and extrajudicially killed them:

ALEX JONES (HOST): And if we're this selfish of a society, then fine, just burn it all down. But I want Bill Gates and others to walk the plank first. Oh, I haven't forgotten about them. I mean seriously, folks, if we would throw our birthright away and act like this and let people do things like this. I mean, look, all I have is honesty, and I'll tell you what Trump should do. They've already arrested the head biologist for being a Chinese spy at Harvard and getting tens of millions of dollars secretly and running all these operations.
What do you think Epstein did? What do you think Bill Gates does? What the hell is Microsoft doing running the Pentagon cloud? We're under attack by a foreign military with collaborators and it wasn't on the news in 1941 when the Marines just went around in plain clothes killing all the Nazis, OK? And killing the collaborators. And they'd come and say, "We know you're working for the Nazis because you're in a German community. You're going to go help us and lead them to a spot, we're going to kill them in this barn, or we're going to kill you." And we just killed them. It was only ten or 15,000 we had to kill, took about a week. You know, you don't play games with this stuff. Kill the Chinese spies. Kill them now. I want them dead. No more games. I want Trump to issue death warrants now against all these people. I want them killed, I want them dead now.

In a disturbing video posted April 28 to banned.video, Jones claimed that there is "about a 60% chance we go into total collapse," describing a mass starvation scenario that he blamed on Bill and Melinda Gates and others. Jones said he is "literally looking at my neighbors now and going, I'm ready to hang them up and gut them and skin them and chop them up and you know what, I'm ready. My daughters aren't starving to death." Jones then said, "That's why I want the globalists to know I will eat your ass first. We're going to dig you out of those bunkers, we're going to dig you out of those holes. Let me tell you something right now, I swear to god if it's the last thing I do, I'll get my hands around your throat."

Infowars encourages supporters to harass Gates

Beyond attacking Gates in broadcasts, Jones has taken his attacks and conspiracy theories to the public forum. Infowars has been hosting rallies in Texas against public health orders, and at an April 25 protest, Jones led the crowd in chants of "arrest Bill Gates":

Infowars has also encouraged people to protest outside of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation headquarters in Seattle, Washington. When reports recently emerged that email addresses for people who work at the Gates Foundation were hacked, Infowars host Owen Shroyer celebrated, saying that the hack was like "WikiLeaks DNC dumps 2.0, but like bigger" and said he hoped that it would lead to a criminal investigation into the Gates Foundation, Barack Obama, and others.

Jones is taking credit for social media accounts associated with Gates being flooded with conspiracy theories and for members of the public believing that Gates is involved in the coronavirus outbreak. During his April 24 broadcast, Jones claimed that his "life is in danger for doing this" because of what he has said about Gates, "but now Bill Gates goes everywhere people yell at him, they call him a mass murderer, they get in his face, every comment is now digging into his history." Jones said that his role in talking about Gates and others was so "they go down with the ship" during a future mass bio-attack launched by globalists. During his April 23 broadcast, Jones related how he says people often approach him in public now and say things like, "We love you, Alex, and Bill Gates is going to burn in hell," "F Bill Gates, we're winning, Alex, keep it up," and "Bill Gates is the enemy, you are our champion, destroy him."

Jones is pushing the White House to attack Gates

Jones often claims to be in close communication with White House officials and sometimes President Donald Trump himself, who appeared on Jones' show in 2015 to praise the Infowars host's "amazing" reputation.

Jones has now claimed that he is passing information about Gates to the White House. In a video posted on April 27 to Infowars' streaming platform, Jones said Trump is beginning to get "up to speed" on Gates and is "beginning to announce to the enemy, their main organizational system," which Jones said includes Gates, the World Health Organization, and eugenicists. Jones said that he "personally talked to some very high-level people and I told them all of this just days ago," adding, "Now I realize my main mission, I didn't understand Trump didn't have any advisers telling him this. I never knew my real power was not even talking to the general public."