Investor Warren Buffett omitted the Gates Foundation from this year’s annual giving slate for the first time amid revelations into co-founder Bill Gates’ connection with the late convicted sex offender and high-flying financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The 95-year-old billionaire and philanthropist is funneling all of this year’s $6 billion in donations to four family charities managed by his children, Susie, Howard and Peter, he said in his official announcement on Tuesday. He’ll disburse 9 million Class B Berkshire Hathaway shares valued at $4.5 billion to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named for his late wife. One million shares each, worth about $500 million, will go to daughter Susie Buffett’s Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and Peter Buffett’s NoVo Foundation, he said.
Buffett also announced plans to disseminate his remaining $140 billion in stock to charities by the end of 2034, rather than have his children do it within 10 years of his death, as he had initially planned.
“My goal is to dispose of all of my Berkshire shares within about eight years,” Buffett said in his statement, adding that he has “every hope” his children will be able to do so, but noting that they themselves are advancing in age. “Of course, mortality is unpredictable, but my remaining shares will be donated to the four foundations one way or the other by December 31, 2034.”
Conspicuously absent was any mention of the Gates Foundation, which has received about $47 billion in Berkshire Hathaway shares since Buffett pledged his lifelong support back in 2006. In the ensuing 20 years, the founders of what was back then the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have divorced, and Gates’ ties to the now notorious sex offender have eked out. His name appears nearly 3,000 times in the Epstein Files, documents released by Congress over the past few years detailing his alleged crimes against hundreds of then-minor victims over decades.
Gates has expressed regret at his association with Epstein, whom he met in 2011, three years after the latter pleaded guilty to a single count of soliciting prostitution from a minor in a 2008 sweetheart deal with now-U.S. Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta. Gates also apologized to foundation staff in February.
The Microsoft founder told the House Oversight Committee last month that he knew nothing of Epstein’s crimes and had only been in touch regarding potential foundation donors. He cut ties in 2014, five years before Epstein was arrested in 2019 on sex trafficking and other charges and died in jail while awaiting trial.
Buffett had reportedly delayed this year’s donation decision pending the results of an external review the foundation had commissioned into the situation, The Wall Street Journal reported in June. In March, Buffett mentioned to CNBC that he and Gates had not spoken since the Epstein affair came to light, saying he did not want to have any conversations that might get him subpoenaed later.
The Gates Foundation released a short statement Tuesday expressing gratitude for the $47 billion in donations it had received from Buffett so far. Buffett did not comment Tuesday, but was set to discuss this year’s donations on CNBC’s “Squawkbox” at 6 a.m. Wednesday.
With News Wire Services