Bill Gates arrives for a press conference to launch the Global Polio Eradication Initiative at the European Commission’s Berlaymont headquarters in Brussels on October 11, 2023.
Simon Wohlfahrt | Afp | Getty Images
Billionaire Bill Gates announced on Thursday that he will double his charitable giving to $200 billion over the next 20 years.
In a blog post, the Microsoft co-founder wrote that he was motivated by the many challenges facing the world, such as children’s health and climate change, as well as the late Andrew Carnegie’s admonishment of wealth hoarding.
“People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that ‘he died rich’ will not be one of them,” Gates wrote. “There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people.”
Gates is currently the world’s fifth richest person with a $168 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The $200 billion commitment assumes his charitable foundation’s endowment will grow through investments.
The Gates Foundation, founded by Gates and his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, in 2000, has already given away more than $100 billion. After Bill Gates has given away “virtually all” of his wealth, the foundation will close at the end of 2045, he said.
Gates is one of few billionaires to publicly step up their charitable giving as nonprofits and universities reel from federal funding cuts. Despite his increase in giving, he said philanthropists cannot cover the multibillion-dollar foreign aid cuts by the U.S. and other wealthy countries.
“The United States, United Kingdom, France, and other countries around the world are cutting their aid budgets by tens of billions of dollars. And no philanthropic organization—even one the size of the Gates Foundation—can make up the gulf in funding that’s emerging right now,” he wrote. “It’s unclear whether the world’s richest countries will continue to stand up for its poorest people.”
In an interview with the Financial Times, Gates criticized Elon Musk for his role in cutting U.S. foreign aid. In February, Musk’s so-called Department of Governmental Efficiency effectively shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development. The federal agency disbursed $42.5 billion in 2023, according to government data, that provided lifesaving assistance, including health care, clean water and food across the globe.
“The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one,” Gates told the Financial Times.
In early March, the agency estimated that the cuts would have dire consequences, including 1 million children with severe acute malnutrition going untreated and up to 166,000 additional deaths from malaria.
Gates, his then-wife and Warren Buffett founded the Giving Pledge in 2010 as a commitment for the world’s richest people to give away more than half their wealth in their lifetime or wills. French Gates has since stepped down from the Gates Foundation but has her own philanthropic organization.
Musk has signed the Giving Pledge. Gates told the New York Times that he doesn’t know whether Musk will follow through.
“The Giving Pledge — an unusual aspect of it that you can wait until you die and still fulfill it. So who knows? He could go on to be a great philanthropist,” he said before pointing to Musk’s involvement in the foreign aid cuts.
Musk has given away less than 1% of his wealth, according to Forbes. The publication estimates his out-the-door giving — gifts that have been paid, not just pledged or parked in a foundation — at $620 million over his lifetime through 2023.
