Nikki Haley didn't say only Bill Gates can save humanity. Quote is fabricated | Fact check
The claim: Nikki Haley said only Bill Gates 'can save humanity’
A Jan. 31 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) shows a photo of Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley speaking into a microphone along with a link to what appears to be a news story from The People's Voice.
“Nikki Haley: ‘Only Bill Gates Can Save Humanity,’” reads the headline of the story in the image, which is a screenshot of a post on X, formerly Twitter.
The Instagram post received more than 300 likes in a day. The original X post was shared thousands of times.
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Our rating: False
There is no record of Haley making such a statement. The claim distorts a social media post from 2020 in which she thanked Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates for spending money to build facilities to produce COVID-19 vaccines. The claim originated on a website with a lengthy history of spreading misinformation.
Haley thanked Gates for help with COVID-19 in 2020
As evidence of its claim, the Jan. 17 article from The People's Voice points to a post Haley shared on X (then Twitter) in 2020 in which she thanked Gates for providing funds to help manufacture COVID-19 vaccine candidates during the pandemic. But that post was made three years before she declared her candidacy and does not mention Gates being the only one to save humanity.
There are no credible news reports about Haley referring to Gates as the only one who can "save humanity."
Fact check: Yes, Nikki Haley is eligible to run for president
The People's Voice is a website known for publishing misinformation, and it fails to include the context around the 2020 post from Haley, which came less than a month after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic.
Haley posted the same message on Facebook, and both versions of it link to a story in The Hill about Gates' spending on the vaccine candidates. Neither includes the quote attributed to her in the Instagram post.
The People's Voice, previously known as NewsPunch, has repeatedly published fabricated stories. Among the many debunked by USA TODAY in recent months are false claims that the World Economic Forum demanded a limit of no more than three cups of coffee per person each year and that New Hampshire banned “chemtrails.”
Polls show Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, trailing former President Donald Trump in the race for the Republican presidential nomination ahead of her party’s Feb. 24 primary election in her home state.
USA TODAY reached out to a Haley campaign spokesperson and to The People’s Voice but did not immediately receive responses. The Instagram and X users who shared the post could not be reached.
Our fact-check sources:
Nikki Haley, April 6, 2020, X post
Nikki Haley, April 6, 2020, Facebook post
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Nikki Haley didn't say only Bill Gates can save humanity | Fact check
