Created in 2020, Wellcome Leap teamed up the Wellcome Trust with two former DARPA directors, who ran DARPA under the Obama administration, both of whom went on to create DARPA equivalents for Silicon Valley. Essentially creating privatised DARPA specifically for Silicon Valley organisations who have ties to the US national security state: Google and Facebook.This article is Part I of two parts. This article explores the people and organisations behind Wellcome Leap and the R3 program.Google received considerable input and funding from the US Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”) and Facebook has considerable ties to the US Defense Advanced Research Projects...