US News

Mark Zuckerberg engaged? Bill Gates says so

There’s a reason Bill Gates doesn’t talk to reporters.

The billionaire Microsoft founder may have just bungled the engagement announcement of pal and Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, telling London’s Daily Mail in an offhand remark over the weekend that the young tech titan has asked his girlfriend to marry him.

The notoriously private Zuckerberg, 26, has been dating Priscilla Chan, 26, since they were students at Harvard in 2005.

Gates, 55, spilled the beans on his friend’s potential nuptials when talking about how fellow philanthropist Zuckerberg decided to give $1 million to Newark’s beleaguered school system last year.

“His fiancée, Priscilla, thought about education, and he gave money to Newark,” the loose-lipped Gates said.

Facebook officials declined to comment yesterday.

In the rare, wide-ranging interview, Gates also offered a glimpse into his own home life, including how anything and everything Apple — products of arch-rival Steve Jobs — is considered contraband in his house.

For example, his three kids — Jennifer 15, Rory, 12, and Phoebe, 9 — aren’t allowed to own an iPad, iPhone or iPod, he said.

“They have the Windows equivalent,” Gates, 55, said flatly. “They have a Zune music player, which is a great portable player,” he added of the Microsoft gadget that was specifically designed to take a bite out of Apple’s slice of the music player market. “They are not deprived children.”

But Gates admitted they will be deprived of most of his $56 billion empire.

He plans to leave his kids only about $10 million each.

“It will be a miniscule portion of my wealth,” he said. “It will mean they have to find their own way. They will be given an unbelievable education and that will all be paid for.

“And certainly anything related to health issues we will take care of.

“But in terms of their income, they will have to pick a job they like and go to work. They are normal kids now. They do chores. They get pocket money.”

It’s all part of his determination to have his family live as normal a life as possible.

“I drive myself around town in a normal Mercedes. I’ve had a Lexus. The family has a Porsche, which is a nice car that we sometimes take out. [But] we have a minivan, and that’s what we use when it’s the five of us,” he said.