Warren Buffett (Photo: Paul Morigi / Getty Images for Fortune/Time Inc)
According to the Financial Times, the Gates Foundation was removed from the list of future grant recipients following reports about Bill Gates’ ties to American financier Jeffrey Epstein, which gained renewed attention after the release of documents from the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation.
Back in March, Buffett said that he had not spoken with Gates since the reports were published. The billionaire also noted that he would not want to be called as a witness in the ongoing investigation.
In previous years, Buffett had donated more than $40 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. However, in 2024, he made it clear that the remainder of his fortune would go to charitable organizations associated with his family.
As Bloomberg notes, for the first time in two decades, Buffett did not include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation among the organizations that will receive his future donations.
According to Reuters, Buffett has donated more than half of his Berkshire Hathaway shares to charity since 2006. For many years, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation remained the largest recipient of these donations. In 2021, Buffett stepped down from the foundation’s board of trustees shortly after Bill and Melinda Gates announced their divorce, and in 2024, he stated that donations to the foundation would cease after his death.
