Just days from Donald Trump’s inauguration, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates revealed he had a three-hour dinner with the President-elect, calling the meeting “intriguing” and “impressive.”

“I had a chance, about two weeks ago, to go have a long and actually quite intriguing dinner with him,” Mr Gates told The Wall Street Journal.

Their conversation, which he described as “wide-ranging,” touched on various topics, including HIV, polio, and the COVID-19 pandemic. “I spoke a lot about HIV and that [The Gates] Foundation is literally working on a cure for that. We’re at an early stage,” he told WSJ’s Editor-in-Chief Emma Tucker.

The billionaire entrepreneur was particularly “impressed” by Trump’s energy and willingness to drive innovation. “I felt like he was energised and looking forward to helping to drive innovation,” Mr Gates said. “I was frankly impressed with how well he showed a lot of interest in the issues I brought up.”

He also highlighted the parallels between the accelerated vaccine development during the COVID-19 pandemic and the potential for similar progress in HIV research. “He in the COVID days accelerated the vaccine innovation,” Mr Gates said. “So I was asking him if maybe the same kind of thing could be done here,” adding that both got “pretty excited about that.”