Warren Buffett Donates $2 Billion In Stock To Gates Foundation

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Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has donated $2 billion—mere pocket change, to him—to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. His donation comes in the form of almost 17.5 million shares of Berkshire Hathaway Inc (NYSE:BRK.B) Class B Common shares, according to a press release from the firm. The stock was valued at around $2 billion as of Friday’s closing stock price, reports DealBook’s William Alden.

Warren Buffett Donates $2 Billion In Stock To Gates Foundation

Warren Buffett’s Donations

Of the five beneficiary organizations receiving Berkshire shares, the Gates Foundation received the lion’s share. The other four foundations each received less than 2 million shares. They are the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, the NoVo Foundation and the Sherwood Foundation. Those four foundations were started by Buffett himself and his three children individually.

Warren Buffett makes donations like these every year. Seven years ago, Buffett said he would give the Gates Foundation approximately $31 billion. He also said that most of his fortune would go to the five foundations which received donations this year. Last year he said he would double his annual donations to the charities of each of his three children because he appreciated what they had done.

Warren Buffett’s Net Worth

Forbes estimates Warren Buffett’s net worth to be around $53.5 billion as of March, which of course puts him on the list of the world’s richest people. The Bloomberg Billionaire Index listed Bill Gates as the world’s richest man again this year. Warren Buffett is third on Bloomberg’s list of the world’s wealthiest men.

Warren Buffett and Gates joined forces in the past through the Giving Pledge, encouraging other very wealthy Americans to donate a large portion of their wealth. Investors from all over the world have pledged to give part of their wealth to charity, like activist investor Bill Ackman and his wife Karen, Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL)’s Larry Ellison, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s Mark Zuckerberg and others.

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