Billionaire business magnate Bill Gates has carved out a reputation for himself as one of the most generous philanthropists in the world. He has donated $4.6 billion worth of shares in Microsoft Corp, which is his biggest gift to charity in 17 years ever since he set up the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. According to a Securities & Exchange Commission filing, Gates donated 64 million shares in the last summer.
His last largest gift came in 2000 when he donated $5.1 billion worth of Microsoft shares in 2000 in a bid to improve global healthcare and also to reduce extreme poverty. Just a year before, he gave away $16 billion worth in shares. Bill Gates’ contribution to education- $1.7 billion.
The shares donated depict about 5% of his current $90bn fortune. Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates have by far donated $35bn since 1994. It’s because of their fruitful contributions, Gates Foundation has grown to become the world’s largest private charity with $40.3bn of funds, prior to the latest gift
Bill Gates said the promise was “about building on a wonderful tradition of philanthropy that will ultimately help the world become a much better place”.
Bill Gates has never ranked lower than second position in the seven-year history of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. However. his run ended Tuesday when the Microsoft Corp. co-founder slipped to No. 3 behind France’s Bernard Arnault.
LVMH, Arnault’s luxury-goods maker jumped to a sensational record on Tuesday where he pushed his net worth to $107.6 billion well ahead of Gates by more than $200 million. Arnault added about $39 billion to his fortune in 2019, the biggest ever individual gain by far among the 500 people in Bloomberg’s ranking.
If it not for Bill Gates’s philanthropic gesture, he would still be the world’s richest person. The generous person has by far donated more than $35 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Bezos’s net worth goes slightly up this year to $125 billion despite reaching a divorce settlement with MacKenzie Bezos that made her the fourth-richest woman in the world.