Buffett redirects billions from Gates Foundation to family trusts

Warren Buffett will no longer give his annual multi-billion-dollar share donations to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The 95-year-old investor instead plans to direct his remaining Berkshire Hathaway stock to four foundations managed by his family. "Of course, mortality is unpredictable," Buffett said, noting his remaining shares will be distributed by 31 December 2034.

The move arrives weeks after Gates detailed his past associations with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to a US congressional committee. While Buffett did not mention Gates or Epstein by name in his donation statement, he told CNBC in March that he had not spoken to Gates "since the whole thing was unveiled." Buffett explicitly cited his desire to avoid legal entanglements, stating: "I don't want to be in a position where I know things... to be called as a witness."

The decision severs a philanthropic partnership that began in 2006, when Buffett praised the foundation's work and committed to yearly donations "throughout my lifetime". Over the past two decades, those contributions totalled $47bn, making the Gates Foundation the primary vehicle for Buffett's fortune.

For European public health systems and global development NGOs that rely on transatlantic private funding, the shift alters the long-term capital outlook for the world's largest private foundation. The Gates charity has been a dominant force in tackling infectious diseases and funding research initiatives across Europe and the developing world. The loss of Buffett's annual injections means the organisation must now rely entirely on Gates' personal commitment of $200bn to sustain its work through 2045.

The foundation told the BBC it is "grateful to Warren Buffett for his decades of support for our work." It added that it "continues from a position of financial strength to advance our work through 2045, supported by Bill's $200bn commitment." However, the charity has faced significant internal upheaval in recent years. Bill and Melinda Gates divorced in 2021, and Melinda French Gates resigned from the organisation in 2024, taking $1bn to fund women's rights initiatives in the US.

Gates testified in June that he met Epstein in 2011 hoping to secure billions in donations for global health, an effort he now regrets. "I should never have met with Epstein in the first place," Gates said. The end of the Buffett-Gates alliance also signals a broader retreat from the coordinated mega-philanthropy model the two men pioneered with the Giving Pledge in 2010.