Warren Buffett pledges $5.3 bn of Berkshire Hathaway shares to 5 charities
Warren Buffett pledges $5.3 bn of Berkshire Hathaway shares to 5 charities
Legendary investor Warren Buffett announced a significant donation of $5.3 billion worth of Berkshire Hathaway shares to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and four family charities.
Buffett's donations have increased his total contributions to charities to about $57 billion, including gifts to family charities in the past two November.
On Friday, it was announced that Buffett is donating about 13 million Berkshire Class B shares. Of these, 9.93 million shares will go to the Gates Foundation, bringing his total donations to the foundation to over $43 billion in Berkshire shares.
Buffett is also donating 993,035 shares to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named after his late first wife. Additionally, he is giving 695,122 shares each to three charities led by his children: the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, the Sherwood Foundation, and the NoVo Foundation.
At 93, Buffett intends to donate more than 99% of his fortune, which he accumulated while running Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire since 1965. His children will serve as executors of his will.
Berkshire, worth about $880 billion, is a conglomerate that owns many businesses, including the BNSF railroad and Geico car insurance, and holds stocks like Apple.
Despite giving away more than half of his Berkshire stock since 2006, Buffett still owns about one-seventh of the outstanding shares. Before his latest donations, he was worth $134.3 billion, making him the world's eighth richest person according to Forbes.
Buffett stated that he was worth about $44 billion when he started his donations. He attributed his current wealth to the benefits of compounding, "simple and generally sound capital deployment" at Berkshire, and the "American tailwind."
Buffett and Bill Gates started the Giving Pledge, where 245 people, including OpenAI's Sam Altman, Michael Bloomberg, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg, have committed to donating at least half of their wealth to charity.
The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation focuses on reproductive health. The Howard G. Buffett Foundation aims to alleviate hunger, address conflicts like those in Ukraine, and improve public safety. The Sherwood Foundation supports nonprofits in Nebraska, while the NoVo Foundation focuses on initiatives for girls and women.
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