No, this is not Bill Gates’s mansion in Hawai'i ‘untouched by the fires’

By: Rohith Gutta
August 17 2023

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Context

The Hawai'i archipelago off the coast of the U.S. has been ravaged by fires over the past few days, resulting in nearly 100 deaths and the destruction of streets and buildings. In that context, an X user (formerly Twitter) shared a photo of a mansion with the caption, "Guess who's Oceanfront Home in Hawai'i was untouched by the 'fires'?" The picture has an image of Bill Gates overlaid, implying that the mansion belongs to him. The post has 58,500 views and 1,814 reposts by the time of publication. Archived version of the post can be seen here. 

The claim is being shared across platforms. (Source: X/Screenshot)

However, the mansion, though belonging to Bill Gates, is not in Hawai'i. 

In fact

Researching the photo led us to various websites that listed the house as the property of Bill Gates in Medina, near Seattle in Washington State in the U.S. Getty Images supplied the image. A look at the Getty Images archive led us to the original photo. Ted Soqui took the photo for Getty Images, and the image was uploaded on June 21, 2021. The caption on Getty Images reads, "Bill Gates's home January 2000: Bill Gates's house in the Medina Area of Seattle." 

An image of Bill Gates house in Medina Area, Seattle. (Source: Getty Images)

Using the location Medina provided by Getty Images, we located the mansion on Google Maps. The mansion belonging to Bill Gates is situated on the shores of Lake Washington on 18th Street, Medina, Washington. The chimney stacks, small covered marina, and the partly visible body of water that is Lake Washington can be identified in the Google Maps location.

The covered boat marina seen on Getty Images can also be located on Google Maps.
(Source: Getty Images (L), Google Maps)

There are also no news reports of Bill Gates owning property on the oceanfront of Hawai'i's archipelago.  

This claim is part of a conspiracy theory that Bill Gates is part of a nefarious cabal secretly taking over the world. Logically Facts has debunked various conspiracy claims surrounding Bill Gates in the past. Read here, here, and here.

The verdict

While the estate in the photo belongs to Bill Gates, it is not in Hawai'i. It is his mansion in Medina, near Seattle in Washington State. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.