Bill Gates says he believes he would have been diagnosed with a form of autism if he had grown up in this era.

The Microsoft co-founder, who is one of the world’s richest people, makes the observation in his memoir: Source Code: My Beginnings – which will be released on Tuesday.

In an excerpt shared by The Wall Street Journal, the 69-year-old billionaire wrote: “If I were growing up today, I probably would be diagnosed on the autism spectrum.

“My parents had no guideposts or textbooks to help them grasp why their son became so obsessed with certain projects, missed social cues, and could be rude or inappropriate without seeming to notice his effect on others.”

He said that “the fact that some people’s brains process information differently from others” wasn’t widely understood during his childhood, with the term “neurodivergent” only becoming popularised in the 1990s.

The philanthropist, who has given away billions of dollars-worth of his wealth through his Gates Foundation, said his social side and “awareness of the impact I can have on other people” was slow to develop, but has “come with age, with experience, with children, and I’m better for it”.

He socialises in high circles, now; in an interview with CBS News on Sunday, he revealed he had been gifted a new all-electric Fiat RED for his birthday by U2 singer Bono, who he works with on global health projects.

Mr Gates wrote he wouldn’t trade his brain “for anything” despite some of the challenges his way of thinking posed during his younger years.

Mr Gates expanded on this point in an interview with The Times, saying: “If they ever invent a pill where they could say, ‘OK, your social skills will be normal but your ability to concentrate would also be normal’, I wouldn’t take the pill.

“Maybe I am forgetting how painful it was but I needed my neurodiversity to write that software.”

He said it was the way his brain is wired which helped him write his first code as a young teenager – a code he would later use for Microsoft.

Neurodivergent describes the minority group that diverts neurologically from what is considered normal – or neurotypical. It relates to a host of conditions including autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and dyslexia.

Roughly one in seven people are estimated to be neurodivergent, according to the NHS.

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There are a number of high-profile individuals such as Mr Gates who have spoken openly about their neurodivergency

One of them is fellow billionaire Elon Musk, who revealed in 2021 that he had Asperger syndrome, which is a form of autism that is now simply seen as a part of the autism spectrum rather than a separate diagnosis.

Some on social media have linked some of Mr Musk’s controversial behaviour to his condition – most recently the hand gesture at Donald Trump’s inauguration which many believed resembled a Nazi salute.

Some came to the Tesla founder’s defence, claiming he was expressing the phrase “my heart goes out to you” and suggesting it perhaps came across awkwardly due to his condition.

The world’s richest man dismissed any controversy, writing on X: “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.”