Billionaire businessman Warren Buffett on June 14 donated about $4 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, along with a number of other charities, as part of his annual pledge to give away nearly all of his net worth.
According to a press release published on Berkshire Hathaway’s website, the businessman converted 9,608 A-shares into about 14.4 million class B-shares in order to donate 14.4 million shares of Berkshire Hathaway ‘B’ stock to five foundations, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, the Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, the NoVo Foundation, and the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named for Buffett’s late first wife.
The donations were delivered on June 14, according to the press release.
Buffett has run the Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. since 1965 and has amassed a fortune in that time. He currently ranks number five on Forbes’ real-time billionaire’s list, with an estimated net worth of $100.2 billion, following closely behind Gates at fourth place with a net worth of $121.4 billion.
The 91-year-old businessman has pledged to donate all of the Berkshire shares he owns to various philanthropies after his death, and has already donated half since 2006, Reuters reports.
In a 2019 annual letter to shareholders, Buffett said: “I myself feel comfortable that Berkshire shares will provide a safe and rewarding investment during the disposal period. There is always a chance—unlikely, but not negligible—that events will prove me wrong. I believe, however, that there is a high probability that my directive will deliver substantially greater resources to society than would result from a conventional course of action.”
Despite the donations, Buffett still owns approximately 16 percent of Berkshire Hathaway and controls about one-third of its voting power.
Buffett’s contribution to the Gates Foundation comes almost a year after he resigned from his trustee role at the organization.
A statement from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on June 14 said it was “awed by our friend Warren Buffett’s decision to use his fortune to address the world’s most challenging inequities,” and humbled by Buffet directing a large portion of his wealth to the foundation.
Buffet’s latest donation comes shortly after his son, Howard, donated millions of dollars from his foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, to support Ukraine amid its invasion by Russian troops.
After meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on June 8 in Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv, the younger Buffett donated $2.7 million to the citizen-funded nonprofit Spirit of America, which will deliver nine 50-passenger buses to the Ukrainian Territory Defense Forces, CNBC reports.
The donation will also fund 375 advanced trauma kits for Ukrainians on the front lines.
“Glad to meet Howard G Buffett in Kyiv,” Zelensky wrote in a June 15 Twitter post. “We appreciate this signal of solidarity. Expressed gratitude for the humanitarian support. Invited him to join projects on restoring irrigation systems in the Odesa region, demining, and school nutrition reform.”
