They made a splash the latest news on Warren Buffett’s legacythe sixth richest man in the world nicknamed the “Oracle of Omaha”. According to what the American entrepreneur and philanthropist himself said at Wall Street Journalafter his death, almost all of his assets will go to a charitable trust overseen by his daughter and two sons. This means that nothing will go to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which from 2006 to 2023 was funded by $39.3 billion by the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.
“The Gates Foundation will no longer receive any money after my death,” said Buffett, who will turn 94 on August 30 and has decided to change his will. The billionaire’s last wishes are clear: upon his death, his three children (Susie, Howie and Peter Buffett) will unanimously decide what philanthropic purposes to use his substantial fortune for.
As reported by the Wall Street JournalBuffett, however, suggested that his children use the money “to help people who have not been as fortunate as we have been,” saying that “there are eight billion people in the world and my children and I have been more fortunate than them by 100 percent or so.” The entrepreneur then told the U.S. newspaper: “I feel very, very good about the values that my three children have and I have 100 percent confidence in the way they are going to move forward.”
Warren Buffett Donates Nearly $5 Billion in Berkshire Hathaway Shares to Various Foundations
Meanwhile, Buffett announced the conversion of 8,674 Berkshire Hathaway A shares into a gift of 13.01 million B shares of the company, worth 5.326 million dollars (4,977 million euros), to five foundationsalthough three-quarters of that amount will go to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust.
According to the “Oracle of Omaha”, of this amount, 9.93 million Berkshire Hathaway class B shares, equivalent to over 4 billion dollars (3,738 million euros), will go to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, while 993,035 shares, worth over 400 million dollars (374 million euros) will be delivered to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, and 695,122 shares, worth approximately 285 million dollars (266 million euros), will be distributed between the Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and the NoVo Foundation.
“The annual grant schedule was created on June 26, 2006, and has since been supplemented with significant grants to four of the five recipients. When it was originally created, I owned 474,998 Berkshire A shares worth approximately $43 billion, and those shares represented more than 98% of my net worth,” Buffett recalled.
The entrepreneur estimated that, over the next 18 years, the five foundations will have received Berkshire B shares worth approximately $55 billion (€51.4 billion), “substantially more than my total net worth in 2006.”
“I have no debt and my remaining A shares are worth approximately $127 billion (€118,687 million), approximately 99.5% of my net worth,” he later noted.
