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Warren Buffett Ends $48 Billion Partnership With Gates Foundation
Warren Buffett has ended his nearly two-decade philanthropic partnership with the Gates Foundation after donating $48 billion. He is directing 2025 donations of nearly $6 billion in Berkshire shares to family foundations instead.
Jul 14, 7:00 PM·2m read2 sources
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Warren Buffett has ended his nearly two-decade philanthropic partnership with the Gates Foundation, @FortuneMagazine reported. He donated a total of $48 billion to the organization over that period. This year the 95-year-old is donating 12 million Class B Berkshire Hathaway shares worth just under $6 billion to charitable organizations.
None of those shares will go to the Gates Foundation. The largest portion, 9 million shares worth about $4.5 billion, will go to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation. One million shares each, worth about $500 million apiece, will go to the Howard G.
Buffett Foundation, the NoVo Foundation and the Sherwood Foundation. Buffett announced Tuesday that the remainder of his $140 billion worth of Berkshire shares will be disbursed by December 31, 2034, to the four foundations run by his family. “Of course, mortality is unpredictable, but my remaining shares will be donated to the four foundations one way or the other by December 31, 2034,” he wrote.
The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation was founded by Buffett in 1964 and named after his late wife. His daughter Susie Buffett serves as chair of its board. The Howard G. Buffett Foundation is run by his son Howard Buffett.
Buffett made an irrevocable lifetime pledge to the Gates Foundation in 2006 to donate as long as either Bill Gates or Melinda French Gates was alive and actively involved.
Last year he donated 9.6 billion to the Gates Foundation. In 2024 he announced the Gates Foundation would receive no money from his estate after his death. The relationship between Buffett and Gates deteriorated after Gates’ 2021 divorce from Melinda French Gates and amid questions over Gates’ alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
