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It's true that, on June 15, 2022, Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates tweeted, I guess we finally ran out of microchips. Gates' tweet came in response to another tweet from The Daily Show's Twitter account. The Daily Show had first tweeted, Wow, Bill Gates encourages everyone to get vaccinated, then a year later Internet Explorer dies. Coincidence??? Both tweets poked fun at debunked conspiracy theories on the subject of COVID-19 vaccines. Gates' reference to microchips can be traced back to near the beginning of the pandemic. In May 2020, The BBC reported on the false and misleading rumor that claimed the entire coronavirus pandemic was a cover for a plan to implant trackable microchips and that the Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is behind it. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation told the BBC that the rumor was false. From The BBC: From what we could tell, The Daily Show's joke tweet was intended to mirror the kinds of baseless rumors that have been posted by conspiracy theorists during the pandemic. Such conspiracy theorists have been known to draw comparisons between unrelated and sometimes unconfirmed news items, as if such comparisons established some sort of spooky, mysterious, and alarming conclusion. In reality, evidence that comes from credible sources, not unsubstantiated rumors, is the key to building a firm conclusion. For any readers lost on The Daily Show's mention of Internet Explorer, it referred to the fact that Microsoft ended support of the web browser on the same day that both tweets were posted. Internet Explorer was first introduced in 1995. In sum, in case Gates' tweet about microchips spreads as a screenshot in the future, yes, he tweeted it, and it was nothing more than a joke.
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