- Warren Buffett has given away another $6 billion. The latest philanthropic donation went largely to the Gates Foundation, with the remainder going to charities run by his children.
Warren Buffett has given away the biggest chunk of his fortune since he began distributing it in 2006.
The soon-to-be-former CEO of Berkshire Hathaway has donated 12.36 million Berkshire Class B shares, worth $6 billion, to the Gates Foundation and four family charities. The Gates Foundation received the majority of the shares, with a gift of 9.43 million.
Of the remaining nearly 3 million shares, 943,384 went to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation. And 660,366 shares were given to three charities led by his children: the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, Sherwood Foundation (run by daughter Susie), and NoVo Foundation (run by his son Peter).
Buffett, 94, donated $5.3 billion in shares last June and distributed another $1.14 billion last November, in what has become a Thanksgiving tradition for him.
“Father time always wins,” he wrote in November. “But he can be fickle—indeed unfair and even cruel—sometimes ending life at birth or soon thereafter while, at other times, waiting a century or so before paying a visit. To date, I’ve been very lucky, but, before long, he will get around to me.”
Buffett last month announced he would be stepping down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of the year. In a preview of his will, he noted that donations to the Gates Foundation will end following his death, with most of his fortune being funneled into a new charitable trust that will be overseen by his children, and the three must decide unanimously on how the money is distributed, he said.
Buffett is currently ranked as the world’s eighth-richest person on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with a value of $152 billion.