Thomas Massie also accepted a $7000 donation from Rory Gates, son of Bill Gates. I made sure it wasn’t just another person with the same name. Who is Rory Gates? Rory Gates, the 27-year-old only son of Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, works as an analyst for the Afghanistan War Commission while pursuing his PhD at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C. He currently resides and works on the East Coast, rather than in Indian Wells.

From the Afghanistan War Commission Staff biographies page: Rory Gates

ANALYST

Rory is currently a PhD candidate at the Institute for World Politics, where he is finishing up a dissertation that analyzes the efficacy of psychological warfare and brainwashing with a focus on Right Wing Extremism in America since the Civil War. Previously, Rory was a policy fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, where he focused on Chinese influence operations in the West Pacific. Before that he worked as an analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency, as an open-source analyst for Advance Democracy, and a research assistant on criminology/ political science. Rory earned his BA in creative writing/political science with honors and his Master’s in International Relations (magna cum laude) from the University of Chicago, where he completed his thesis on international relations theory under the supervision of John Mearsheimer.

The Afghanistan War Commission is an independent body established by the U.S. Congress to examine the key strategic, diplomatic, and operational decisions that pertain to the war in Afghanistan from June 2001 to August 2021.