Bill Gates: ‘I would be diagnosed with autism if I were a kid today’

Bill Gates has claimed he would be diagnosed with autism if he were a child today.

Gates has said that he believes his obsessive and socially awkward behaviour as a child would have been labelled as a sign of neurodivergence if he grew up in today’s society.

The Microsoft founder and tech billionaire reflects on his “neurodivergent” behaviour as a young boy in his new autobiography, Source Code.

Gates, 69, said as a child he would miss social cues, often “rock in place” and was able to focus intensely on certain subjects.

Speaking to the Times, he said he would today be considered “on the autism spectrum”, adding: “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 or inappropriate without seeming to notice his effect on others.”

His claim comes amid an increase in autism diagnoses, with a 2021 study finding a 787% rise in the number of UK diagnoses in the decades between 1998 and 2018.

Bill Gates is soon to release an autobiography titled Source Code. Photo / Getty Images

Gates said he had no idea he was different until he produced a 200-page piece on the state of Delaware as part of a school assignment, in contrast to the standard 10 pages of his fellow pupils.

He said: “I knew I could focus when I was curious. But it signalled me out as a weirdo. My social skills were slow to develop with my peers.”

Gates used his ability to focus on intellectual pursuits. He dropped out of university to develop Microsoft, and by 31 he was a billionaire.

Now known for his work with disease research, he said he would never trade in these “autistic traits” for a more “normal” way of experiencing the world.

He said: “If they ever invent a pill where they could say, ‘Okay, your social skills will be normal, but your ability to concentrate would also be normal’, I wouldn’t take the pill.

“Maybe I am forgetting how painful it was, but I needed my neurodiversity to write that software; I could do all that stuff in my head. That takes a lot of concentration.”

Gates is not the only major figure in tech to display autistic behaviour. In 2021, Elon Musk revealed in a Saturday Night Live monologue that he had been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome.

Musk elaborated on this experience in 2022, saying that “the social cues were not intuitive”.

He added: “I found it rewarding to spend all night programming computers, just by myself ... But I think that is not normal.”