Big bets on thin air

The Mammoth Climeworks facility, the largest operational direct air carbon dioxide capture facility in the world, in Hellisheidi, Iceland. (Inset) Steel, chief executive of Deep Sky. — ©2025 The New York Times Company

BILL Gates recently met in London with some of the world’s richest individuals, including Jeff Bezos, SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son and Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia.

Their agenda? Evaluating investments in companies working to combat climate change – with a focus on a particularly ambitious idea: extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for profit.