Bill Gates surrenders to Lula.

247 – Bill Gates, who for two decades was the richest man in the world, rolled out the red carpet for the worker. This Wednesday, the 6th, he will host the Forum of Public Sector Leaders of Latin America and the Caribbean, in Washington, which will feature former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as the main speaker. The fee? US$100. This will be Lula's second lecture since leaving office. For the first, at an event for the Korean company LG, the former president received R$200. This means that, in just two events, Lula will have received the equivalent of a full year's salary as president of the Republic.

The meeting between Bill Gates and Lula is imbued with symbolism. During the FHC era, Microsoft experienced its best years in Brasília. Represented by businesswoman Cristina Boner, of the company TBA, the company practically obtained a monopoly on the sale of operating systems to the government. Lula, on the other hand, was a great promoter of the sale of open-source operating systems, such as Linux, in a policy spearheaded by Sérgio Amadeu da Silveira, one of the country's leading experts in digital inclusion. Several ministries, autonomous agencies, foundations, and state-owned companies began operating with Linux.

This policy, naturally, faced resistance at Microsoft. In 2005, Bill Gates tried to meet with Lula at the Davos Forum in Switzerland, but the request was not granted by the presidential protocol office. In 2009, Lula was the main speaker at the International Free Software Forum, where he praised his policy of breaking Microsoft's monopoly. "Either we went to the kitchen to prepare the dish we wanted to eat, with the spices we wanted to add, or we were going to eat what Microsoft wanted to sell us," said Lula, who received a standing ovation from the audience. At the event, Lula also took photos with Linux figurines and even wore a Red Hat cap, another promoter of free software.

Microsoft, which lost ground in federal government procurement during Lula's administration, has very close ties with the company TBA. To such an extent that the former president of Bill Gates' company in Brazil, Mauro Muratório Not, even served as CEO of Cristina Boner's company. He left the position a little over a year ago, when tapes from the so-called DEM mensalão scandal, headed by former governor José Roberto Arruda, implicated the businesswoman.

Today, Lula's lectures are marketed by the company LILS (Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva) Lectures, Events and Publications Ltda. It is the first company established by Lula, in partnership with his friend Paulo Okamotto, former president of Sebrae. Protective of his image, Lula doesn't leave home for less than US$100. And he demands, of course, first-class travel and accommodation in five-star hotels.

There is great anticipation regarding the speech Lula will give this Wednesday. At the LG event, Lula was very friendly with the sponsors. He said that the process of social inclusion and expansion of the middle class was crucial for people to buy more LG televisions. What will he say at the Microsoft event, a company he so vehemently opposed?