- Bill Gates has gifted $100 billion of his personal fortune to good causes so far, he told the BBC.
- Microsoft’s cofounder is the world’s seventh-richest person with a net worth of about $164 billion.
- Gates said his philanthropy hasn’t forced him to “order less movies or less hamburgers.”
Bill Gates says he’s given away $100 billion of his personal fortune so far.
The Microsoft cofounder and Gates Foundation chair revealed the scale of his philanthropy to the BBC.
Despite his extensive giving, Gates is the world’s seventh-richest person, with an estimated $164 billion net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
As of Wednesday’s close, he’s two spots ahead of longtime friend Warren Buffett, worth $148 billion, and three places above Steve Ballmer, his former assistant and successor as Microsoft CEO, worth $144 billion.
Ignoring any investment gains and all else being equal, if Gates had another $100 billion to his name, he would be worth $264 billion. That would make him wealthier than Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, number two and three on the rich list with respective fortunes of $255 billion and $248 billion. He would be the world’s second-richest person, behind only Tesla’s Elon Musk, worth $414 billion.
For comparison, Buffett has given nearly 57% of his Class A shares of Berkshire to the Gates Foundation and four of his family’s foundations since 2006. The gifts, based on when they were received, total about $56 billion, but the same shares are worth $189 billion today.
Buffett is 25 years older than Gates, meaning the technology pioneer is likely to have more time to distribute his fortune. Buffett, Gates, and Gates’ then-wife, Melinda, established the Giving Pledge in 2006 to encourage the world’s wealthiest people to commit the majority of their fortunes to charitable causes.
“I still have more to give,” Gates told the BBC. “I will give away the vast majority of my money; it’s my full-time focus for the rest of my life, and I enjoy it.”
Gates told the BBC that parting ways with $100 billion hasn’t required him to give up anything at all.
“I made no personal sacrifice,” he said. “I didn’t order less hamburgers or less movies.”
Gates — who published a memoir this week titled “Source Code: My Beginnings” — has previously called for higher taxes on the uber-wealthy, saying people like him should be about a third as rich as they are. But Sen. Bernie Sanders needled him in a recent conversation about why he wanted to remain a multi-billionaire.
“How much do you deserve? Can you make it on a billion? Think you could feed the family? Probably. Pay the rent? Maybe,” the progressive senator quipped.
Gates owned about 1.3% of Microsoft prior to stepping down as a director in 2020, regulatory disclosures show. The bulk of his fortune is now in a holding company named Cascade Investment, which he funded with Microsoft stock sales and dividends.
