Warren Buffett has given his three children a staggering $143.1 billion task. According to his eldest son, it’s “not that easy.”
The 94-year-old chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway has decided to donate his entire fortune to a charity after his death, to be headed by his three children — Howard, 69, Susie, 71, and Peter, 66.
According to the Associated Press news agency, they have just ten years to donate all the money to charities of their choice.
“It’s not that easy to give away money if you want to be smart about it, if you want to be intelligent about it,” said Howard, a farmer who became Berkshire Hathaway’s nonexecutive chairman after his father’s death.
“It’s really amazing that he gives us this opportunity,” he added.
Warren Buffett has decided to donate his entire fortune to a charity after his death, which will be headed by his three children
The billionaire’s eldest son, Howard (center), who will take over as non-executive chairman of Berkshire Hathaway after his father’s death, said it’s not an easy task
Howard went on to say that he and his siblings would continue to follow their father’s example and take risks while trying to find ways to make a difference.
“I can tell you that in due course we will sit in a room and we will resolve it fairly quickly,” he said.
‘With this we bring together all our collective experiences.’
Howard also said he agrees with his father’s decision to allocate the hundreds of billions of dollars.
He believes that wealthy people should generally give away their money during their lifetime rather than keeping it in permanent funds.
‘Somebody’s going to spend that money. Somebody’s going to give that money away.
‘I’d rather do it with my brother and sister, as partners, than do it any other way.’
He promised that he and his siblings, Susie and Peter, will sit down to discuss how the estimated $143.1 billion should be divided.
It is not yet clear which organizations the siblings donate their fortunes to, but they each set up their own foundation, to which they have donated more than $15 billion of their father’s money since 2006.
The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, of which Susie is chair of the board and Peter is a board member, has donated $8.4 billion, primarily to reproductive health organizations.
It also funds access to contraceptives for abortion, donating hundreds of millions of dollars over the years to Planned Parenthood affiliates, the National Abortion Federation, and Population Services International, which operates outside the United States.
Susie’s Sherwood Foundation is also a major funder of early childhood education programs. Its largest beneficiary is the nonprofit Buffett Early Childhood Fund, which has awarded hundreds of millions of dollars for research, advocacy, training and support of child care providers.
The Howard G Buffett Foundation is committed to food security and conflict management internationally.
Each of the Buffett children has their own foundation, from which they have donated more than $15 billion of their father’s money since 2006
It partners with Catholic Relief Services, which has funded it for at least 15 years, to support farmers in Central America.
“Howard was particularly interested in the factors that drive people to leave rural communities in Central America and Mexico and risk everything to emigrate to the United States,” explains Erica Dahl-Bredine, senior advisor at Catholic Relief Services.
‘And that’s where our vision really became reality.’
Peter Buffett and his wife Jennifer focus their grantmaking efforts on supporting girls around the world and social-emotional learning in schools.
Since 2002, the couple’s foundation has also supported more Native American organizations. The young Buffett became interested in this when he composed some of the music for the film Dances With Wolves and wrote the music for the miniseries 500 Nations.
Buffett will continue to donate annually to the Gates Foundation
For now, however, Buffett will continue donate annually to the Gates Foundation – something he has been doing since 2006 and has earned him more than $40 billion.
He will also continue to donate to his family’s charities, tell the Wall Street Journal In 2022, his fortune should be “used to help those who were not as fortunate as us.”
‘There are eight billion people in the world and me and my kids, we are the happiest 100th percent or something.
“There are many ways to help people,” he added.
Buffett is currently the sixth richest person in the world, after Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg and Bernard Arnault.