Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has said his donations to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will end with his death, after announcing $US5.3 billion ($7.93 billion) of philanthropic funding.
In a shift, Mr Buffett said his three children will decide how to manage the rest of his $US128 billion fortune after he dies.
The 93-year-old investor and chair of US conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway laid out his plan for Howard, Susie and Peter Buffett to agree on the donation of his estate in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
Mr Buffet has donated about $US55 billion of the company’s stock, one of the most valuable in the US, to five foundations since publishing a giving plan in 2006.
The lion’s share has gone to the Gates Foundation, with the other four affiliated with his family or run by his children.
‘Lots of ways to help people’
“The Gates Foundation has no money coming after my death,” said Mr Buffett, who left the Gates Foundation’s board in 2021.
Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, and Melinda French Gates announced they were divorcing in 2021 after establishing the foundation in 2000.
The Gates Foundation invests in poverty alleviation, health and education programs across the world through grants and partnerships.
In his initial pledge to the Gates Foundation in 2006, Mr Buffett wrote that he planned to include the foundation in his will, with donations of shares or other forms of funding to continue after his death.
Mr Buffett said his three children knew the intention behind his philanthropic donations.
“It should be used to help the people that haven’t been as lucky as we have been,” Mr Buffett told the Journal.
“There’s 8 billion people in the world, and me and my kids, we’ve been in the luckiest 100th of 1% or something. There’s lots of ways to help people.”
He is the 10th-richest person in the world, according to Forbes magazine.
Mark Suzman, CEO of the Gates Foundation, said Mr Buffett had been “exceedingly generous” over the 18-year partnership and said the foundation was “deeply grateful for his most recent gift and contributions totalling approximately $43 billion to our work”.
Mr Buffett said his will states more than 99 per cent of his estate is intended for philanthropy.
Berkshire Hathaway owns a range of manufacturing, retail, service and insurance businesses as well as a stock portfolio that covers Apple, Coca-Cola and American Express.
Mr Buffett still owns 14.5 per cent of Berkshire’s outstanding shares despite having given away more than half of his stock since 2006.
Howard Buffett, who already serves on the company’s board, is slated to become chairman after his father’s death.
AP/Reuters