- Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates joked on Twitter that Microsoft "ran out of microchips".
- Wednesday's tweet was in response to the Internet Explorer browser finally being shut down.
- Gates was joking about the conspiracy theory that he implanted microchips in COVID vaccines.
It appears Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates is very much aware of the conspiracy theory claiming he was implanting microchips in people who got the COVID-19 vaccine.
On Wednesday, he joked on Twitter that the company had to shut down Internet Explorer because it "ran out of microchips" vaccinating everyone.
Gates was responding to a tweet posted by The Daily Show that joked: "Wow, Bill Gates encourages everyone to get vaccinated, then a year later Internet Explorer dies. Coincidence???".
The microchip vaccine conspiracy theory is a false rumor that the COVID-19 vaccine was implanting a magnetic tracking device somehow connected to 5G mobile networks.
A Reddit spokesperson told The Verge the rumor originated on 4plebs, a community-run archive of 4chan, before it sprung onto Reddit, became a popular theory and punchline. It has since been repeated by artists including Charlamagne, M.I.A., and Kanye West.
This week, Microsoft shut down Internet Explorer, the browser launched in 1995 that become all but obsolete after being overtaken by the likes of Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari. Microsoft Edge will replace Internet Explorer as the default browser for Windows users.
The move sparked an online wave of nostalgia about the browser, which became notorious for its clunky interface and slow response times last decade.