Bill Gates daughter Phoebe Gates reveals he has Asperger syndrome
Bill Gates' daughter has revealed that the Microsoft billionaire has Asperger syndrome in a podcast appearance.
Phoebe Gates, 22, also spoke about how 'terrifying' it was for her boyfriends to meet her dad when she brought them home, as she appeared on this week's episode of the 'Call Her Daddy' podcast, The Post reported.
'For the guy, terrifying. For me, it's hilarious because my dad's pretty socially awkward,' she told host Alex Cooper. 'Like he's said before, he has Asperger's. So like to me, it's so funny.'
Gates, 69, has never spoken publicly about having Asperger syndrome, a term previously applied to many autistic people.
It has now been merged with other conditions and redefined as autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
People with ASD can often experience difficulties with communication and social situations, as well as exhibit repetitive behaviours and obsessive interests.
Gates said that if he was being raised today, he would probably be diagnosed with autism in his new book 'Source Code,' published in February.
'If I were growing up today, I probably would be diagnosed on the autism spectrum,' he wrote. 'During my childhood, the fact that some people's brains process information differently from others wasn't widely understood.
'My parents had no guideposts or textbooks to help them grasp why their son became so obsessed with certain projects, missed social cues, and could be rude and inappropriate without seeming to notice his effect on others,' he went on.
Formal ASD testing wasn't introduced until the 1980s, while Bill also recalled how the term 'neurodivergent' — referring to those whose brains work differently from others — didn't appear until the 1990s.
Gates, who has a net worth of over $107 billion according to Forbes, said it wasn't until he was in his 40s that someone first suggested to him he might have ASD.
'I remember the first time somebody said to me, 'Are you on the spectrum?' It was like 25 years ago, I remember thinking, 'What the hell? What the hell? I run a goddamn company,'' he told Axios in an interview in February.
'And then I realised, well, actually, it's probably true. I mean, the spectrum thing is confusing.'
During her 'Call Her Daddy' appearance, Phoebe also spoke about her boyfriend, Arthur Donald, 26, the grandson of ex-Beatle Sir Paul McCartney.
'Oh man, it's so bad. Like, I'm so bad at music. I mean, my family like, we're so nerdy, so I knew nothing about music. I knew about tech stuff growing up, not music stuff,' she said.
She recalled a time Donald tried to 'rizz' her by taking her to an Elton John concert.
'And Elton John comes out in like a bedazzled tracksuit. I'm like, 'Is Elton John gay?' His entire family starts dying laughing,' she went on.
Phoebe added that even now, after dating Donald for 'almost two years,' his family still joke about the incident.
This story was originally published in The New York Post
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