Bill Gates to Give Another $29 Billion To Gates Foundation
The foundation says it plans to increase its annual payout by billions of dollars in coming years
2 min
Bill Gates said he is giving another $20 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation endowment this month, and the foundation said it plans to dole out funds faster in the coming years.
The two announcements on Wednesday follow a recent Wall Street Journal article saying that the Gates Foundation was adjusting to possible changes in billionaire Warren Buffett’s plans for his charitable giving and that a little-known Buffett family foundation was preparing to receive an influx of money.
“As I look to the future, my plan is to give all my wealth to the foundation other than what I spend on myself and my family,” Mr. Gates, the Microsoft Corp. co-founder, wrote in a blog post Wednesday. He also detailed the billions that his friend Mr. Buffett has given to the Gates Foundation, noting that about half of the foundation’s resources so far have come from Mr. Buffett, the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Mr. Gates’s latest gift would bolster the Gates Foundation’s endowment, which is roughly $50 billion. The Gates Foundation said Wednesday it would increase its payout by 50% over prepandemic levels, to about $9 billion annually by 2026 compared with about $6 billion pre-Covid 19.
Mr. Buffett, who has pledged to give away most of his wealth, has made annual gifts to the Gates Foundation since 2006, including a roughly $3 billion donation of Berkshire shares in June. He resigned as a Gates Foundation trustee in 2021.
The Journal reported in June that while Mr. Buffett hasn’t revealed publicly how his estate will be divided, officials at the Gates Foundation and the Susan T. Buffett Foundation have discussed in internal meetings that the amount left to the Buffett family foundation could be as high as $70 billion to $100 billion. An endowment of that size would make the Buffett foundation, which is a major supporter of abortion rights, one of the largest private philanthropies in the world, based on publicly available data.
Mr. Buffett didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
“Warren’s advice and thinking influenced the foundation in a profound way even before he made any gifts,” Mr. Gates wrote in his post Wednesday. “Warren, I can never adequately express how much I appreciate your friendship and guidance as well as your generosity.”
The foundation brought in more independent oversight after Mr. Gates and Melinda French Gates filed for divorce. Ms. French Gates subsequently indicated she will shift more of her wealth among other philanthropies. Under terms of the divorce, she agreed to resign from the foundation in 2023 if either she or her ex-husband decides they can no longer work together.
Mr. Gates wrote that he and Ms. French Gates approved an additional $2 billion in spending to help with Covid-19 response and US$1.5 billion was spent by the end of 2021. Mr. Gates wrote that they expected the extra spending to stop once the worst of the pandemic ended but it has become clear in all areas there is more work needed.
Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman wrote in a Wednesday announcement that, with support of its board, the foundation’s focus areas—health, gender equality, agriculture, financial inclusion and education—wouldn’t be changing.
Ms. French Gates said the foundation has spent more than two decades building relationships with a range of partners and this additional spending will help with those partners’ work.
Mr. Gates wrote that his personal focus is on pandemic prevention, global health, education, food costs and climate efforts, the latter funded through a Gates-backed venture Breakthrough Energy. He cited Ms. French Gates’s efforts on gender equality.
Copyright 2020, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. LEARN MORE
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
2 min
The personal wardrobe of the late fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, who is credited for introducing punk to fashion and further developing the style, is headed to auction in June.
Christie’s will hold the live sale in London on June 25, while some of the pieces will be available in an online auction from June 14-28, according to a news release from the auction house on Monday.
Andreas Kronthaler, Westwood’s husband and the creative director for her eponymous fashion company, selected the clothing, jewellery, and accessories for the sale, and the auction will benefit charitable organisations The Vivienne Foundation, Amnesty International, and Médecins Sans Frontières.
The more than 200 lots span four decades of Westwood’s fashion, dating to Autumn/Winter 1983-84, which was one of Westwood’s earliest collections. Titled “Witches,” the collection was inspired by witchcraft as well as Keith Haring’s “graphic code of magic symbols,” and the earliest piece being offered from it is a two-piece ensemble made of navy blue serge, according to the release.
“Vivienne Westwood’s sense of activism, art and style is embedded in each and every piece that she created,” said Adrian Hume-Sayer, the head of sale and director of Private & Iconic Collections at Christie’s.
A corset gown of taupe silk taffeta from “Dressed to Scale,” Autumn/Winter 1998-99, will also be included in the sale. The collection “referenced the fashions that were documented by the 18th century satirist James Gillray and were intended to attract as well as provoke thought and debate,” according to Christie’s.
Additionally, a dress with a blue and white striped blouse and a printed propaganda modesty panel and apron is a part of the wardrobe collection. The dress was a part of “Propaganda,” Autumn/Winter 2005-06, Westwood’s “most overtly political show” at the time. It referenced both her punk era and Aldous Huxley’s essay “Propaganda in a Democratic Society,” according to Christie’s.
The wardrobe collection will be publicly exhibited at Christie’s London from June 14-24.
“The pre-sale exhibition and auctions at Christie’s will celebrate her extraordinary vision with a selection of looks that mark significant moments not only in her career, but also in her personal life,” Hume-Sayer said. “This will be a unique opportunity for audiences to encounter both the public and the private world of the great Dame Vivienne Westwood and to raise funds for the causes in which she so ardently believed.”
Westwood died in December 2022 in London at the age of 81.
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
