Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has announced a donation of $5.3 billion in Berkshire Hathaway stock to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and four family charities, marking his largest annual donation since 2006.
The donation includes approximately 13 million Berkshire Class B shares, with 9.93 million going to the Gates Foundation and 993,035 to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation.
Additionally, 695,122 shares would be donated to each of three charities led by Buffett’s children: the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, the Sherwood Foundation, and the NoVo Foundation.
This latest donation brings Buffett’s total giving to approximately $57 billion, including donations made to family charities in the last two Novembers.
Despite having given away more than half of his Berkshire shares, Buffett remains the world’s eighth richest person, with a net worth of $134.3 billion prior to the latest donations.
Buffett, 93, has pledged to give away more than 99% of his fortune, which he built through his leadership of Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway since 1965.
Berkshire is an approximately $880 billion conglomerate with diverse holdings including the BNSF railroad, Geico car insurance, and stocks such as Apple.
In a statement, Buffett noted that his wealth had grown significantly since he began donating in 2006, thanks to the benefits of compounding and “simple and generally sound capital deployment” at Berkshire.
He also co-founded the Giving Pledge with Bill Gates, which has inspired 245 individuals, including Sam Altman, Michael Bloomberg, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg, to commit at least half of their wealth to philanthropy.
Boluwatife Enome
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