OMAHA, Neb.– Investor Warren Buffett announced another $5.3 billion in charitable giving on Friday, but in a major shift from his long time donation plan He said he plans to stop donations to the Bill & After his death, he founded the Melinda Gates Foundation and let his three children decide how to divide the rest of his $128 billion fortune.
Buffett explained his new plan for his estate in a interview with the Wall Street Journal. The 93-year-old billionaire who leads Berkshire Hathaway did not immediately respond to questions from The Associated Press on Friday about his plan, which calls for Howard, Susie and Peter Buffett to unanimously agree on what to spend his Berkshire Hathaway shares on after his death.
Buffett has given about $55 billion of Berkshire stock to five foundations since laying out his giving plan in 2006, with the vast majority going to the funds. Gates FoundationThe other four foundations are affiliated with his family, including the foundations run by each of his children.
“The Gates Foundation will have no money after my death,” said Buffett, who left the Gates Foundation board in 2021 after Bill Gates, one of his closest friends, announced he and Melinda French Gates were divorcing. French Gates left the Gates Foundation earlier this year.
In his first promise to the Gates Foundation in 2006, Buffett wrote that he planned to include the foundation in his will. “I will shortly write a new will that will provide for a continuation of this commitment – by distribution of the remaining earmarked shares or otherwise – after my death,” he wrote at the time, referring to the annual gifts of Berkshire Hathaway stock he promised.
But Buffett said inside a statement Friday that his original promises are only valid until his death.
Buffett will leave it up to his children to decide what to do with his Berkshire stock, just as he does now when he lets foundations decide how to use his gifts. He said they already know the purpose of his giving.
“It should be used to help the people who haven’t been as fortunate as we have been,” Buffett told the Journal. “There’s eight billion people in the world, and me and my kids, we’ve been in the luckiest 100th of 1% or something like that. There’s a lot of ways to help people.”
Mark Suzman, CEO of the Gates Foundation, said in a statement that he appreciates Buffett’s generosity over the years.
“Warren Buffett has been extraordinarily generous to the Gates Foundation over more than 18 years of contributions and advice,” Suzman said. “He has played an invaluable role in championing and shaping the foundation’s work to create a world where everyone can live healthy, productive lives. We are deeply grateful for his most recent gift and contributions totaling approximately $43 billion to our work.”
The value of Buffett’s donations has grown with the steady rise in the price of Berkshire’s stock, so the shares he has given away so far are already worth more than his entire $43 billion fortune when he announced his plan. The conglomerate’s most traded Class B shares are up about 22% in the past 12 months.
“Nothing special happened in Berkshire; a very long runway, simple but generally sound capital deployment, US tailwinds and compounding have created my current wealth,” Buffett said in a statement. “My will stipulates that more than 99% of my estate is for philanthropic use.”
Buffett’s own Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation is one main supporter of abortion rights over the years, but he has allowed it his children and the Gates Foundation make their own decisions about how to distribute his donations. Howard Buffett has given more than $500 million to Help Ukraine since Russia invaded as part of its focus on helping war-torn regions.
Buffett also makes occasionally other gifts to unnamed charities, but he never disclosed the details of those gifts.
Buffett will still own 207,963 Class A shares of Berkshire stock and 2,586 Class B shares after giving away just over 13 million Class B shares on Friday. Because of the voting power of the Class A shares, Buffett still has by far the most say in the operations of the massive Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate, which he leads as chairman and CEO. He has not bought or sold Berkshire stock in 18 years.
Buffett has said that one of his vice chairmen, Greg Abel, who already oversees all of Berkshire’s non-insurance businesses, take over as CEO after he’s gone. Berkshire owns an eclectic range of manufacturing, retail and service companies, including the BNSF Railroad, several major utilities, Dairy Queen and Precision Castparts. Insurance companies, including Geico and General Reinsurance, are also a core part of Berkshire, and the company owns a huge stock portfolio dominated by iconic companies like Apple, Coca-Cola, American Express and Bank of America.
Buffett’s son Howard, who already serves on Berkshire’s board of directors, will become chairman after his father’s death, but Buffett’s children will not play an active role in the company’s day-to-day operations.
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Associated Press writer Thalia Beaty contributed to this report from New York.
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