In the lead-up to Bill Gates’s meeting with Donald Trump last month, predictions abounded as to what the pair would discuss. Perhaps Gates, who criticized the president in the annual letter from his philanthropic foundation, calling his “America First” stance “concerning,” would urge Trump to re-engage in foreign aid. Perhaps, a source told CNN, he would push for scientific-research funding. Perhaps he would bring his concerns about Silicon Valley to bear. On Monday, Gates himself answered the query. In an interview with Stat, he revealed he’d broached the topic of a universal flu shot with Trump, and that the president was uncharacteristically excited by the prospect—so excited, in fact, that he asked Gates whether he wanted a job at the White House.

At one point during their 40-minute meeting, Gates said he told the president, “You should associate yourself with American innovation. Wouldn’t you love to have the universal flu vaccine be something that really got kicked off and energized by you?” Trump was reportedly “super interested” in the idea, and “in a matter of moments” had his F.D.A. Commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, on the phone. “Hey, Gates says there’s a universal flu vaccine. Is that crazy?” Gates recalled Trump asking. (According to Stat, Gottlieb said he’d need to conduct further research on the topic.)

Gates then made a radical suggestion: “I mentioned: ‘Hey, maybe we should have a science adviser.’ [Trump] said: Did I want to be the science adviser?”

Gates declined, reportedly telling the president, “That’s not a good use of my time,” meaning the position—which Trump has taken longer to fill than any other modern president—is still vacant. Trump’s de facto science adviser and the top-ranking science official in the White House, Michael Kratsios, is a 31-year-old political science major with no scientific background whatsoever. Though the Trump White House has thrown its weight behind things like judicial nominations, rushing to appoint conservative judges to at least 29 federal positions, including 14 appeals-court judges and one Supreme Court justice, many science-related agency positions remain unfilled. More than that, the White House has taken an openly hostile stance on science, attempting to install pro-industry leaders on federal science advisory boards, rolling back environmental protections and regulations, taking down or de-emphasizing government Web pages that address climate change, and—perhaps most famously—withdrawing altogether from the Paris climate accord. Just last week, E.P.A. Administrator Scott Pruitt attempted to impede his staff by effectively limiting the kinds of scientific research it’s allowed to evaluate.

Ironically, Gates, who is at least marginally familiar with environmental policy thanks to his work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, would be a decent choice for the science-adviser role—more than can be said of Trump’s other picks, many of whom seem diametrically opposed to the missions of the departments they now run. But Gates has another thing going for him: the president’s vote of confidence—which, as the failed nomination of Ronny Jackson illustrates, is really all that’s needed to earn a job in the White House. Trump’s operating principle, one White House official told The Washington Post, is “ready, shoot, aim, as opposed to ready, aim, shoot.” A Republican strategist put a finer point on it: “The Trump White House vetting machine is an oxymoron. There’s only one answer—Trump decides who he wants and tells people. That’s the vetting process.”