Bill Gates donates US$20 billion to his foundation, says he plans to ‘give away all my wealth’ in future
- The Microsoft co-founder says he will move down and eventually off the list of the world’s richest people, on which he currently holds fourth place
- The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s new goal is to distribute US$9 billion annually by 2026, ramping up 50 per cent from its current rate
Bill Gates is donating US$20 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation this month as the philanthropic behemoth plans to speed up its pace of giving.
“I hope by giving more, we can mitigate some of the suffering people are facing right now and help fulfil the foundation’s vision to give every person the chance to live a healthy and productive life,” Gates said in a statement on Wednesday.
“As I look to the future, I plan to give virtually all of my wealth to the foundation. I will move down and eventually off of the list of the world’s richest people,” the world’s fourth-richest person added in a tweet.
The foundation’s new goal of distributing US$9 billion annually, which it aims to accomplish by 2026, is a 50 per cent increase from its current rate. Gates’s latest infusion of cash brings the foundation’s total endowment to about US$70 billion, according to the statement.
Following their tumultuous divorce last year, the foundation’s namesake billionaires jointly committed US$15 billion to the Seattle-based organisation, which Gates’s most recent contribution would fully cover.
“Since then, both co-chairs have made significant contributions toward the pledge,” Kate Davidson, a Gates Foundation spokeswoman, said in an email, without specifying a dollar amount.
As part of last year’s announcement, the pair also said that Melinda French Gates might step down from her roles as co-chair and trustee if the two are unable to work together.
If she departs, French Gates, 57, will receive money from Gates for her charitable work that is separate from the foundation’s endowment. Gates, 66, has already transferred billions of dollars of stock in companies to French Gates, who has built her own philanthropic investment firm Pivotal Ventures.
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Davidson said there are no plans yet for French Gates to step aside.
“Bill and Melinda are fully committed to continuing to work constructively together at the foundation to advance its programme and policy objectives,” she said.
Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft Corp., has a fortune of US$113.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, while French Gates is worth US$10.3 billion.
Following through on another post-divorce promise, the foundation this year expanded its board of trustees by four members, adding the organisation’s chief executive officer, a Zimbabwean billionaire, a non-profit consultant and a baroness.
The board previously comprised a tiny circle of friends and family, including Gates’s father, who died in 2020, and Warren Buffett, who has donated more than US$35 billion to the charity, including US$3.1 billion in June. Buffett, 91, stepped down soon after Gates and French Gates split.
The Gates Foundation has long been a powerhouse in the non-profit world, employing almost 1,800 people and spending nearly US$80 billion since 2000.
In 2019, it was overtaken by Fidelity Charitable, a donor-advised fund provider, as the country’s largest grantmaker. At that point, both made less than US$5 billion in gifts annually.
Even if it hits its US$9 billion annual goal, the Gates Foundation may still trail Fidelity, which has benefited from a recent rise in the use of donor-advised funds, or DAFs. In 2021, Fidelity dispersed more than US$10 billion in gifts.
