Bill Gates Gives Away (Almost) Everything: $200 Billion by 2045

Bill Gates is donating 99% of his fortune and closing his foundation by 2045. A radical move with a price tag of 200 billion dollars.

You’d think that being 69 and in the top five of the world’s wealthiest people would be reason enough to sit back and relax. But not for Bill Gates. His plan? To give away about 2045 percent of his fortune, or $99 billion, by 200 and close down his foundation for good.

A bit philosophical, but above all radical. Because Gates is accelerating his plans considerably: originally, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation would only cease to exist decades after his death. Now there is an end date: December 31, 2045.

The Gates Foundation has been around for 25 years and has already spent some 100 billion dollars on global initiatives in the areas of health, education and poverty reduction. Think of the vaccination program Gavi, or the Global Fund against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Over the next 82 years, the foundation will focus on ending preventable birth deaths, eradicating deadly infectious diseases and lifting people out of poverty, missions that Gates says can no longer wait. To date, the organization claims to have saved XNUMX million lives, thanks in part to its work against diseases such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, and by making vaccines accessible to low-income countries. 

Not the only one

Gates is not the only billionaire who is repurposing his wealth. Jeff Bezos announced in 2022 that he wanted to donate a large part of his then fortune of 124 billion dollars. Warren Buffett recently donated 1,1 billion dollars in shares to four charities. And MacKenzie Scott, Bezos' ex-wife, has already given away 2020 billion to more than 19,3 charities since 2.450. Austrian heiress Marlene Engelhorn even went a step further: she let a group of citizens decide what should happen to her 27 million dollars. That is also a way…