The claim that Bill Gates personally donated $50 million to Terrana Biosciences is false. According to Fundz and AgFunderNews, that $50 million was a Series A investment made by Flagship Pioneering — the Cambridge-based biotech venture firm — not by Gates or the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Flagship Pioneering's spokesperson explicitly denied any Gates involvement when Snopes investigated the rumor.
The Gates Foundation's own committed-grants database, which is publicly searchable, contains no entry for Terrana Biosciences. The Foundation's agriculture-related grants focus on smallholder farmers in Africa, nutrition, and seed access — not RNA crop technology. A separate 2024 grant to unrelated Flagship Pioneering companies appears to have been misread by social media users as a connection to Terrana, but no such link exists.
The claim originated from unsourced social media posts and at least one YouTube video with no credible sourcing. Snopes investigated this exact rumor and found no evidence of a Gates connection. The misattribution likely spread because Flagship Pioneering received two unrelated Gates Foundation grants in 2024, creating a superficial but inaccurate association.