SEATTLE (AP) – Bill Gates said that he will give 99% of his technological fortune remaining at the Doors Foundationwhich will now close in 2045, earlier than expected. Today, this is about $ 107 billion.
The commitment is among the greatest philanthropic gifts of all time – going beyond the historical contributions of industrialists such as John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie when they are adjusted for inflation. Only Berkshire Hathaway the Warren Buffett investor make a donation of his fortune – Currently estimated by Forbes at $ 160 billion – can be greater depending on stock market fluctuations.
Gates will be delivered over time and will allow the Foundation to spend an additional $ 200 billion over the next 20 years.
“It's a bit exciting to have so much to be able to put in these causes,” said Gates in an interview with the Associated Press.
Its announcement Thursday points out both a promise of supported support for these causes, in particular global health and United States Educationand a possible end to the immense global influence of the Foundation. Gates says that the expenses of his fortune will help save and improve many lives now, which will have positive ripples far beyond the closure of the foundation. This also makes it more likely that his intentions are honored.
“I think that 20 years is the good balance between giving as much as possible to make progress on these things and give many remarks to people that this money will be gone,” said Gates.
In a separate league
The Gates Foundation has long been unparalleled among the foundations – attracting supporters and detractors, but also many unfounded conspiracy theories.
In addition to the $ 100 billion he spent since his foundation 25 years ago, he led scientific research, helped develop new technologies and feed long -term partnerships with countries and businesses.
Until now, around 41% of the Foundation money comes from Warren Buffett and the rest of the makeshift doors made in Microsoft.
Launched by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates in 2000, the Foundation plays an important role in developing global health policy and has widened a special niche by associating companies to reduce the cost of medical treatment that low and medium to income countries could afford.
“The foundation work had much more impact than I was expecting,” said Gates, calling him a second and last career.
The influence of the Foundation on World Health – of the World Health Organization for Research Program – is both a measure of its success and a magnet for criticism. For years, researchers have asked why a rich family should have as much swinging on how the world improves people's health and reacts to crises.
Gates said that, like any other citizen, he can choose how to spend the money he earns and decided to do everything he could to reduce infant deaths.
“Is it a bad thing? It is not an important cause? People can criticize it,” he said, but the foundation will stick to its global health work.
The Associated Press receives financial support for the coverage of news in Africa of the Gates Foundation and for the coverage of the new women in the workforce and the state houses of the organization of Melinda French Gates, Pivot Ventures.
Major ambitions for the remaining 20 years
The most precious metric of the Foundation is the drop in childhood deaths of avoidable causes of almost half between 2000 and 2020, according to United Nations. The CEO of the Foundation, Mark Suzman, takes care to say that they do not take the credit of this achievement. But he believes he had a “catalytic role” – for example, helping to deliver vaccines to children through Gavi, the alliance of the vaccines they helped to create.
The Foundation still has many objectives – eradicating polio, controlling other fatal diseases, such as malaria, and reducing malnutrition, making children more vulnerable to other diseases.
Gates hopes that by spending these problems now, the rich donors will be free to tackle other problems later.
The Gates Foundation had planned to finish two decades after the death of Gates, which means that today's announcement considerably increases this calendar. Gates plans to stay engaged, but at 69, he admitted that he may not have his say.
During its remaining two decades, the foundation will maintain a budget of around $ 9 billion a year, which represents a leveling of its almost annual growth since 2006, when Buffett began to donate.
Suzman expects the foundation to reduce its objective of priorities.
“Having this temporal horizon and the resources simply puts an even bigger burden to say:” Do you really put your resources, your thumb, on what will be the most important and most successful bets rather than dispersing it too much? “” Said Suzman, what he recognized, even the creation of uncertainty even in the Foundation on the continuing programs.
Gates is the only founder remaining
The major changes preceded the 25th year of the Foundation.
In 2021, Melinda French Gates and Bill Gates divorced and buffett resigned as a trustee of the Foundation. They recruited a New board of directors To help govern the Foundation and, in 2024, the French doors left to continue working in its own organization.
French Gates said that she had decided to resign in part to focus on the fight against the decline in women's rights in the United States Elle Women of Impact event In New York in April, she said she wanted to leave the foundation at a highest point.
“I trusted Mark Suzman so much, the current CEO,” she said. “We had a board in place that I helped to set up, and I knew their values.”
Even if the governance of the foundation stabilizes, the road to come seems difficult. Sustainable conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, global economic turbulence and foreign aid reductions provide for less resources to come in health and global development.
“The greatest uncertainty for us is the generosity that will go into global health,” said Gates. “Will he continue to descend as if it had been in recent years or can we bring him back where he should be?”
Even in the face of these obstacles, doors and foundations speak, as they often do, with optimism, pointing to innovations they have financed or ways to reduce the cost of care.
“It's amazing to find these things at low cost and tragic if we cannot bring them to all those who need them,” said Gates. “It will therefore require to renew this commitment from those who are in conformity to help those who need the most.”
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