Warren Buffett Donates Another $1 Billion. He Has Estate-Planning Advice for Everyone.
Four family foundations will receive shares worth more than $1 billion
2 min
At age 94, Warren Buffett is reflecting on life, wealth and mortality.
The legendary investor’s company, Berkshire Hathaway , said Monday that Buffett will again give a portion of his Berkshire shares, in this case worth about $1.15 billion, to four family foundations. The donations leave him holding 206,363 Class A shares worth about $148 billion.
As he did last November, Buffett is converting 1,600 Class A shares into 2.4 million Class B shares, which hold less voting rights, before donating them to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named for his late first wife, and to foundations led by his children.
The Thanksgiving-time donations supplement annual gifts to the four foundations, as well as to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, that Buffett has made since 2006, when he unveiled plans to make major gifts throughout his lifetime.
In a message accompanying Monday’s news of the donations, Buffett discussed his plans for his three children, Susie, Howard and Peter Buffett , to distribute the Berkshire shares he owns at his death. Buffett told The Wall Street Journal in June that the Gates Foundation had no money coming after he dies.
The three Buffett children, now in their 60s and 70s, will need to decide unanimously what philanthropic purposes their father’s money serves. Buffett said in his new comments to shareholders that the requirement will give his children some degree of protection from an expected bombardment of requests.
“Those who can distribute huge sums are forever regarded as ‘targets of opportunity,’ ” Buffett wrote. “This unpleasant reality comes with the territory. Hence, the ‘unanimous decision’ provision. That restriction enables an immediate and final reply to grant-seekers: ‘It’s not something that would ever receive my brother’s consent.’ And that answer will improve the lives of my children.”
Buffett wrote that while potential successor trustees have been chosen, he hopes that Susie, Howard and Peter Buffett are themselves the ones to distribute all of his assets.
“I know the three well and trust them completely,” he wrote.
Buffett’s huge position in Berkshire means a rapid selling of his stock could jolt the share price. He wrote that his children should distribute his holdings gradually, and in a manner that “in no way betrays the exceptional trust Berkshire shareholders bestowed upon Charlie Munger and me.”
Buffett offered a suggestion for all parents, wealthy or not: “When your children are mature, have them read your will before you sign it.” He said it is better for children to be able to ask questions when a parent is still able to respond.
In discussing his fortune, Buffett, ever the teacher, highlighted the importance of compounding, especially after many years of investing.
“The real action from compounding takes place in the final twenty years of a lifetime,” he wrote. “By not stepping on any banana peels, I now remain in circulation at 94 with huge sums in savings—call these units of deferred consumption—that can be passed along to others who were given a very short straw at birth.” undefined undefined Berkshire’s Class B shares have rallied 34% this year, compared with a 26% gain by the S&P 500. Earlier this year the company joined a small club of U.S. businesses worth more than $1 trillion.
Copyright 2020, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. LEARN MORE
The 1860s Darlinghurst mansion Stoneleigh could become Sydney’s most expensive home ever sold under the hammer when it goes to auction. Clint Ballard is giving buyers a $28 million guide for the heritage-listed mansion on Darley Street, opposite Iona, the former home of Hollywood royalty Baz Luhrmann. Stoneleigh is being offered for sale for the …
Set on one of the city’s last absolute riverfront sites, The Riversdale by Mosaic combines irreplaceable waterfront ownership with one of Brisbane’s most significant residential opportunities.
The voices reshaping how Australians think about money — and why credibility matters more than reach.
6 min
The best financial advice many Australians are receiving right now is not coming from licensed advisers charging by the hour. It is coming through a phone screen, in the ten minutes between work and dinner, from creators who have built credibility the hard way: by being right, being transparent, and being specific in a space where vagueness has always been the easy default.
This is not a ranking by follower count. Follower count is a measure of distribution, not of quality. What follows is a ranking by substance — credentials, accuracy, community depth, and the quality of what an audience actually learns from following these accounts. The distinction matters, because the Australians acting on this content are making real financial decisions with real money.
1- Queenie Tan – Corporate Authorised Representative; Co-Founder & Director, Invest With Queenie & Billroo
There are finance influencers who talk about building wealth, and there are those who document it in real time with receipts. Queenie Tan belongs firmly in the second category. Starting from a $400-per-week income, Tan built her net worth past $1 million while publishing the actual numbers — income, savings rate, investment decisions — for an audience of more than 400,000 across platforms.
She is a Corporate Authorised Representative, co-founder of the personal finance app Billroo, and the author of a book that has become a practical reference for young Australians navigating ETFs, superannuation and property. What separates her from the crowded field of money educators is precision: she does not talk in principles when she can talk in percentages.
2- Alan Kohler – Editor-in-Chief, Eureka Report; Editor-in-Chief, InvestSMART Group; ABC News finance presenter, host of Inside Business.
If Queenie Tan represents the new wave of personal finance creators, Alan Kohler represents something the new wave will spend decades trying to build: institutional credibility that has survived multiple economic cycles. As Editor-in-Chief of the Eureka Report and InvestSMART Group, and a decades-long presence on ABC News, Kohler has spent more than thirty years making financial analysis accessible without dumbing it down.
His coverage of RBA decisions, market movements and economic policy is cited by podcasters, journalists and fund managers alike. He is not chasing virality. He does not need to.
3- Aleks Nikolic – Corporate lawyer; host, Big Swinging Stocks podcast
Most finance creators address the mechanics of money. Aleks Nikolic addresses the psychology — and that distinction explains why her following is as loyal as it is. Operating as Broke Girl Wealth across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, Nikolic covers ETFs, crypto and investment strategy, but her real differentiator is a willingness to discuss the emotional architecture of financial decision-making.
Shame around debt. Fear around market volatility. The limiting beliefs that stop people acting on what they already know. In a space where confidence is routinely performed, her candour is a genuine competitive advantage.
4- Bryce Leske & Alec Renehan – Equity Mates Media
Equity Mates did not build a following. They built a media company. What began as a podcast by two friends learning to invest has grown into Australia’s most established investing media brand, covering ASX stocks, ETFs, global markets and fund manager interviews across podcast, social and YouTube.
The longevity is the credential. Equity Mates has operated through multiple market cycles, a global pandemic, and a generational shift in how Australians engage with investing — and its audience has grown through all of it. When the hosts speak, their listeners know they have been paying attention for years.
5- The Lazy CEO – CEO & Founder, Showpo; Shark Tank Australia investor
The metric that matters most on social media is not followers — it is engagement, because engagement signals trust. Jane Lu, known as The Lazy CEO, maintains an engagement rate of approximately 1.15 per cent on Instagram, which is exceptional for a finance account of his size. Her 242,000-plus followers are not passive consumers: they ask questions, share experiences and apply what they read.
Her content focuses on business finance and wealth building, and the active comment sections are the clearest possible evidence that her audience does not merely scroll past.
6- Tash Invests – Founder, Tash Lends; Forbes Australia 30 Under 30
Tash Invests built her following on a premise that sounds simple but is rarer in practice than it should be: she publishes the actual numbers. Not approximations or ranges or anonymised case studies — her salary, her savings rate, her portfolio value, her net worth, updated and on the record.
Having bought her first property at twenty-two and grown her documented net worth past $1 million, she has become the primary reference point for young Australians trying to understand what building wealth on a moderate income genuinely looks like. The specificity is the product.
7- David Scutt – APAC Market Analyst at StoneX Group
The authority of most finance social media content rests on research and reading. David Scutt‘s authority rests on having done the job. A former Treasury Dealer at Arab Bank and the Commonwealth Bank, former ASX Business Supervisor, and former Global Markets Editor at Business Insider Australia and anchor at ausbiz TV, Scutt now brings that direct market experience to his role as APAC Market Analyst at StoneX Group, rather than relying on secondary commentary.
When he discusses foreign exchange movements or ASX dynamics, it is not because he has read about them. It is because he has traded them.
8- Meddy Demars – Investing & crypto content creator
The gap Meddy Demars fills is specific and underserviced: connecting global macroeconomic events to the practical reality of Australian investors. When the US Federal Reserve adjusts interest rates, when inflation data moves, when commodity prices shift — most Australian finance content either ignores the local implications or translates them poorly.
Demars, operating across TikTok and Instagram from Sydney, does the translation well: explaining what global conditions mean for Australian stocks, savings rates and investment portfolios in terms that are accessible without being condescending.
9- Simran Kaur – Founder, Friends That Invest
Friends That Invest is arguably the most successful community-building exercise in Australian personal finance, and Simran Kaur is the reason why. The New Zealand-based creator — whose audience is predominantly Australian — built a podcast, a book and a social media presence around a single insight: that the personal finance world was not speaking to young women, and that the consequences of that gap were significant.
The measurable cultural shift that followed — women engaging with investing concepts in communities that had not previously existed — is the kind of impact that most financial literacy programmes aim for and rarely achieve.
10- Effie Zahos – Money Editor at 9News
Effie Zahos is one of Australia’s most recognised financial commentators, appearing regularly across 9News, A Current Affair, Today and Today Extra as 9News Money Editor. Her role puts everyday money questions, from mortgage rates to cost-of-living pressures, in front of a national broadcast audience.
Before television, she spent years as editor of Money magazine, building the editorial foundation for her current commentary. She is also Director and Money Commentator at InvestSMART, an ambassador for Canstar, and a published author, with her financial advice available in print as well as on screen.
That combination, decades of editorial experience, an active broadcast presence, and a body of published work, is what makes her commentary carry weight beyond any single platform or post.
Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation CEO Kristina Keneally says Australia’s culture of large-scale philanthropy is becoming more sophisticated as Gold Dinner raises $75.5 million for children’s health, research and innovation.
The grand harbourside residence combines sweeping Sydney Heads views, resort-style entertaining and refined designer finishes with a reported $36 million price guide.
