Buffett Promises Fortune to Gates Foundation (2024)

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Buffett Promises Fortune to Gates Foundation? ›

Buffett Promises Fortune to Gates Foundation Warren Buffett, the investment guru known as the Oracle of Omaha, now has another title: most generous philanthropist in history. Buffett has pledged to give away $37 billion, with most of it going to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

After 17 years of steady payments, Warren Buffett has to date given annual donations totalling US$50.7 billion toward his historic multibillion-dollar pledges to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and to four foundations connected to his family, according to a tally by the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., plans to contribute 85 percent — about $37.4 billion — of his Berkshire stock to charity, with approximately $31 billion directed to the Gates Foundation, effectively doubling the asset base of the largest foundation in the United States.

The Giving Pledge is a charitable campaign, founded by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, to encourage wealthy people to contribute a majority (i.e. more than 50%) of their wealth to philanthropic causes. As of June 2022, the pledge has had 236 signatories from 28 countries.

However, the primary stock Buffett and Gates have in common is Berkshire Hathaway itself. Most of Buffett's fortune is invested in Berkshire. The conglomerate makes up 16.8% of the Gates Foundation Trust's portfolio, making it the charitable organization's second-largest holding.

“My will provides that more than 99% of my estate is destined for philanthropic usage,” he wrote in the press release. In 2006, Buffett pledged to give away 85% of his stock in the company to charity, designating the majority of it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Buffett, who's driven a Cadillac for decades, only decided to replace his 2006 model after Barra visited him in his hometown of Omaha in May 2014. The investor's Berkshire Hathaway had invested in GM in 2012.

In July 2022, Gates said he planned to give “virtually all” of his wealth to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, according to a post shared on X, formerly known as Twitter. His message came as the foundation revealed a new plan to increase yearly spending “from nearly $6 billion to $9 billion annually by 2026.”

Connect: As co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates shapes and approves foundation strategies, advocates for the foundation's issues, and sets the organization's overall direction.

Among his various tips and tricks, lies Buffett's golden rule. And it's pretty straight forward: “Never lose money”.

What are Warren Buffett's 5 rules? ›

A: Five rules drawn from Warren Buffett's wisdom for potentially building wealth include investing for the long term, staying informed, maintaining a competitive advantage, focusing on quality, and managing risk.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have been best friends for over 30 years.

So Buffett says he reads around 5-6 hours daily, including newspapers, magazines, 10Ks, annual reports, and biographies. For Buffett, reading is priority number one. While most executives focus on networking or analyzing financials, Buffett dedicates the majority of his workday to reading.

Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, who cochair the board, have been the largest donors—they've contributed $59.1 billion as of 2022. (Their combined net worth is at least $133 billion, per Forbes.)

The trust section manages "the investment assets and transfer proceeds to the foundation as necessary to achieve the foundation's charitable goals"—it holds the assets of Bill and Melinda Gates, who are the sole trustees, and receives contributions from Buffett.

At the time of his original 2006 donation, Buffett owned $43 billion of Berkshire stock, some 475,000 Class A shares. Since then, he has given away about $50 billion in Berkshire stock and still owned 216,637 Class A shares based on the latest proxy in March. That interest is now worth $133 billion.