OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – Investor Warren Buffett announced another $5.3 billion in charitable donations Friday, but in a major shift from his long-standing giving plan, he said he plans to continue making donations to the Bill & Melinda Gates after his death Foundation and his three children will decide how to divide the remainder of his $128 billion fortune.
Buffett explained his new plan for his estate in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. The 93-year-old billionaire who runs Berkshire Hathaway did not immediately respond Friday to questions from The Associated Press about his plan that calls for Howard, Susie and Peter Buffett to unanimously agree on where to put his Berkshire Hathaway shares after his death.
Buffett has given about $55 billion of Berkshire stock to five foundations since laying out his giving plan in 2006, with the Gates Foundation receiving the largest share by far. The other four foundations are tied to his family, including foundations run by each of his children.
“The Gates Foundation will have no money after my death,” said Buffett, who left the Gates Foundation board in 2021 after Bill Gates, one of his closest friends, announced that he and Melinda French Gates were divorcing. French Gates left the Gates Foundation earlier this year.
In his first pledge to the Gates Foundation in 2006, Buffett wrote that he planned to include the foundation in his will. “I will soon write a new will that will provide for a continuation of this commitment — through distribution of the remaining earmarked shares or otherwise — after my death,” he wrote at the time, referring to the annual gifts of Berkshire Hathaway stock that he promised.
Buffett said in a statement Friday that his original promises are valid only until his death.
Buffett leaves it to his children to decide what to do with his Berkshire shares, just as he does now when he lets the foundations decide how to use his donations. He said they already know the purpose of his donations.
“It should be used to help the people who haven’t been as fortunate as we have been,” Buffett told the Journal. “There are eight billion people in the world, and me and my kids are in the luckiest 100th of 1% or something like that. There are many ways to help people.”
Mark Suzman, CEO of the Gates Foundation, said in a statement that he appreciates Buffett’s generosity over the years.
“Warren Buffett has been extraordinarily generous to the Gates Foundation through more than 18 years of contributions and advice,” Suzman said. “He has played an invaluable role in championing and shaping the foundation’s work to create a world where everyone can live healthy, productive lives. We are deeply grateful for his most recent gift and contributions totaling approximately $43 billion to our work.”
The value of Buffett’s donations has grown with the steady rise in the price of Berkshire’s stock, so that the shares he’s given away so far are already worth more than his entire $43 billion fortune when he announced his plan. The conglomerate’s most traded Class B shares are up about 22% over the past 12 months.
“Nothing extraordinary happened at Berkshire; a very long runway, a simple but generally sound capital deployment, the American tailwind and compounding have created my current wealth,” Buffett said in a statement. “My will directs that over 99 percent of my estate be for philanthropic use.”
Buffett’s own Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation has been a strong supporter of abortion rights over the years, but he has let his children and the Gates Foundation make their own decisions about how he will distribute his gifts. Howard Buffett has given more than $500 million to help Ukraine since the Russian invasion, as part of his focus on helping war-torn regions.
Buffett also occasionally makes other donations to unnamed charities, but he has never disclosed details of those donations.
Buffett will still own 207,963 Class A shares of Berkshire stock and 2,586 Class B shares after giving away just over 13 million Class B shares on Friday. Because of the voting power of the Class A shares, Buffett still has by far the most say in the operations of the massive Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate, which he leads as chairman and CEO. He has not bought or sold Berkshire stock in 18 years.
Buffett has said that one of his vice chairmen, Greg Abel, who already oversees all of Berkshire’s non-insurance businesses, will take over as CEO after he leaves. Berkshire owns an eclectic collection of manufacturing, retail and service businesses, including BNSF Railroad, several large utilities, Dairy Queen and Precision Castparts. Insurance companies, including Geico and General Reinsurance, are also a major part of Berkshire, and the company owns a vast stock portfolio dominated by iconic companies such as Apple, Coca-Cola, American Express and Bank of America.
Buffett’s son Howard, who already sits on Berkshire’s board of directors, will become chairman after his father’s death, but Buffett’s children will not play an active role in the company’s day-to-day operations.
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Associated Press writer Thalia Beaty contributed to this report from New York.
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