Bill Gates Donates $4.6 Billion to Charity

Bill Gates – currently the richest man in the world – has chosen to donate his largest sum to charity since 2000. The amount is a mere 5% of his $90 billion fortune which is around $4.6 billion.

The charity receiver was not disclosed, though, the amount is expected to end up in a collection of charities under the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Gates is known to donate around 80 million Microsoft shares to charity each year.

The latest figure will be paid in 64 million of Microsoft shares, which leaves Gates share at Microsoft to 1.3%, from a high of 24% in 1996. He remains the second largest holder of Microsoft shares at 103 million just under the former CEO Steve Ballmer and ahead of current CEO Satya Nadella.

His 3rd Largest Charity to Date

It represents the third-largest amount he has donated to charity, after the $16 billion he donated in 1999, followed with $5.1 billion more the next year. So far, he has donated upwards of $35 billion to charity.

His current wealth is now listed at $86.1 billion by Bloomberg, ahead of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos at $84.3 billion. Last month, Bezos momentarily overtook him for a few hours after Amazon stock spiked, before it normalized.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Gates founded his charity, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, back in 2000. It has since grown to become the world’s largest private charity with endowment north of $40 billion, having started with $5 billion, and has the backing of several fellow billionaires such as Warren Buffet.

Gates, along with Buffet, is the founder of The Giving Pledge, an organization founded in 2010 that urges the world’s wealthiest to donate at least half of their fortune to charity. Several of the industry’s most-prominent leaders have joined it to date, including Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook and Elon Musk.