SEATTLE — Billionaire Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates has announced to CBS Mornings that he will be giving away nearly all of his personal wealth-- worth around $113 billion-- over the span of the next 20 years.
Gates told CBS’s Tony Dokoupil that he will be giving away his personal wealth through his charity, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
With inflation, that will allow the Gates Foundation to spend an additional $200 billion over the next 20 years and is equal to about 99% of his personal wealth.
In that time period, Gates told Dokoupil that the donation will save “tens of millions of lives” across the world.
The pledge is among the largest philanthropic gifts ever – outpacing the historic contributions of industrialists like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie when adjusted for inflation. Only Berkshire Hathaway investor Warren Buffett’s pledge to donate his fortune — currently estimated by Forbes at $160 billion — may be larger depending on stock market fluctuations, according to the Associated Press.
“There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people. That is why I have decided to give my money back to society much faster than I had originally planned,” Gates said.
Gates said the Foundation will then close, which is a departure from its founding plans, which would have kept the Foundation running for 25 years after his and ex-wife Melinda’s deaths.
Instead, it will close in 2045.
“A few years ago, I began to rethink that [timeline]. More recently, with the input from our board, I now believe we can achieve the foundation’s goals on a shorter timeline, especially if we double down on key investments and provide more certainty to our partners,” writes Gates.
When asked if he will miss his massive fortune, Gates, smiling, said: “No, I won’t. I hope I’m still alive when we finish the 20 years, but I’ll save a little bit to be able to buy hamburgers as much as I need.”
Gates told CBS that his proudest work is the work he’s done with vaccines in impoverished nations, for things like pneumonia and malaria, and is worried that in the current political global climate, those in need will be having less access to lifesaving vaccines.
“It looks like we’ll be able to raise less money now than we did in the past because the U.S., is at least, tentatively, not supporting buying those vaccines, and other countries in Europe that have always been substantially more generous are also cutting back,” Gates told CBS.
Gates said that the cuts could come at the cost of 6 million deaths around the world over the next five years, increasing by two million, even with the money from the Gates Foundation.
About the Gates Foundation
The Gates Foundation was created in 2000 by then-husband and wife Bill and Melinda Gates, and is based in Seattle. The Foundation’s primary purpose is to enhance healthcare, education, food and resources to help nations in poverty, and decrease the child mortality rate in those nations.
They have also worked to improve access to education and technology for American students with low-income backgrounds.
The Foundation has spent around $100 billion since its inception.
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