To: Amazon , Apple, Facebook , Google et al.

From: Bill Gates

Memo: Dial back the Silicon Valley hubris, or the government will do it for you.

The Microsoft Corp. co-founder didnt use those exact words, but that was nevertheless the message he made clear Tuesday in an interview with Axios ahead of the release of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations annual letter .

Gates told the outlet he absolutely sees examples of monopolistic tech companies overstepping their bounds right now, thereby inviting the same type of protracted, damaging legal battle he faced in the late 1990s as the CEO of Microsoft.

The tech companies have to be ... careful that theyre not trying to think their view is more important than the governments view, Gates warned, or that theyre advocating things that would prevent government from being able to, under appropriate review, perform the type of functions that weve come to count on.

The view that even a clear mass-murdering criminals communication should never be available to the government strikes him as problematic, Gates said, an apparent reference to Apples refusal to unlock the iPhone of one of the shooters in the December 2015 massacre in San Bernardino, California.

He also questioned tech companies enthusiasm about making financial transactions anonymous and invisible.

The problem isnt that the companies are unable to police themselves, Gates said, its that they dont want to. Theres no question of ability; its the question of willingness, he said.

In a possible sign of things to come, EU regulators hit Googles parent company Alphabet with a $2.7 billion fine last year for violating antitrust rules, in the first of three investigations into the companys monopolistic practices. (Alphabet has since filed an appeal .)

Facebook has also been hit with a number of lawsuits in Europe, where its been accused of violating users privacy and enabling a surge in hate speech , which is illegal in Germany.

And back home, representatives from Facebook, Google and Twitter were rebuked at committee hearings in Congress last year for failing to take action to stem Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Your power sometimes scares me, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told Facebook officials. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) offered a more blunt warning: You are going to have to do something about this or else we will.