Warren Buffett is no longer donating his money at death to the Gates Foundation

https://www.axios.com/2024/07/01/warren-buffett-pledge-100-billion

by Mistletoe • 2 years ago

58 34 2 years ago

ok_dad3• 2 years ago

I guess he was just buying time and goodwill from the masses with his announcements. What a disappointment. I guess the wealthy really did win the class war.

rossdavidh2• 2 years ago

Quite possibly he did mean it at the time. However, since the announcement that it would be going to the Gates Foundation, uh, Bill Gates' reputation has had a rough time. Also, it was the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation at the time, and they (and their money and charitable endeavors) have since split, so if it was Melinda Gates' instincts and skills on charitable giving that he was counting on when he made the initial announcement, that might be a reason for pulling back.

ok_dad3• 2 years ago

Pulling back from that foundation, sure, but starting his own org from scratch with no experience, and puts his 3 weird kids in charge? That's ludicrous.

ashoeafoot• 2 years ago

The window closes for all if us, the last trillionair gets a potato for his kingdom .

username135• 2 years ago

Whats more surprising, imo, is that anyone is surprised by this.

magic_smoke_ee• 2 years ago

Yup. It's an all too common tendency for rich people to presume that they're better than everyone else and so don't have to follow any particular legal or ethical code.

andriesm2• 2 years ago

Which legal or ethical code is Buffet not following?

datavirtue• 2 years ago

Dang, his kids are right behind him. Anyone of them could keel over tomorrow.

asdefghyk• 2 years ago

I wonder why they do not start giving a way money while still alive, SO ( I would expect) they can see some of the transformative effects of their giving ?

sameers• 2 years ago

If their money making methods are ethical then isn't this a better strategy, to leave the decisions to others rather than impose your values on them while alive? Also presumably Buffett and his cohorts are better than others at growing their money, so in the vein of the EA argument, it would be best to leave the money untouched while it is being actively managed by the donor, then hand out the windfall after they are dead.

For this argument to work, you have to stop at the donor themselves - you can't keep extending it ad infinitum to their descendants or inheritors. But in the case of the pre-committed amounts, like Gates and Buffett, that isn't the case.

morepork• 2 years ago

They do, for example Buffet donated $5 billion last year. His fortune is so vast that is only perhaps 3%.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/28/buffett-donates-another-5poi...

hindsightbias• 2 years ago

Bill’s sex life may cost the world a $100B+, as Warren’s kids don’t appear to be on the same required wavelength.

noman-land• 2 years ago

"Sex life" is quite the euphemism to describe what he is suggested to have been involved with.

artemislaugh• 2 years ago

cant bring this up on HN without shadowban.

nothercastle• 2 years ago

It was always Malinda gates that made the good stuff happen without her it’s not the same

anonzzzies• 2 years ago

Is there any proof yet? Maybe he did, maybe he didn't and if he did he should be punished, but is there any proof Gates did anything actually wrong besides knowing Epstein?

more_corn• 2 years ago

Has there been news of this? I suspected there was proof on Epstein’s blackmail drives but if there is it hasn’t made the news to my knowledge.

kylecazar• 2 years ago

I remember when the pledge was made initially, and I remember wondering if it would stick since it was not a binding agreement.

jll29• 2 years ago

Buffet loves making money, is may be the wrong guy to give it away.

Based on his article, his children seem very locally oriented rather than global visionaries.

If I was him, I would not leave this to my kids, who may never agree on much, and then there is zero impact and the pile of cash just sits there doing nothing.

The Scottish billionaire Tom Hunter (who go rich from selling shoes) hired a team of 30 who spent a decade working of charitable giving (spending Tom's one billion pounds donation, which if I remember correctly was at least at the time the largest one in UK history).

pockmarked19• 2 years ago

pile of cash just sits there doing nothing

What pile of cash?

These are shares. Buffett and Munger have taken great pains to ensure that capital allocation will be done well at Berkshire after their death.

There’s no “pile of cash sitting there doing nothing”.

dehrmann• 2 years ago

Shares can be sold.

jasdi• 2 years ago

Have you guys recently checked the assets on the Balance Sheets of Corporations?

tuna-piano• 2 years ago

Spending Buffet's staggering fortune in a manner nearing anything efficient feels like a herculean task that even the most capable would struggle with.

Objectively, his kids have not demonstrated any capability to do something of this magnitude. It's really quite disappointing to see Warren mostly backtrack on what he's always said (around nepotism and leaving staggering sums to future generations among other things).

You'd think even if this is related to Gate's Epstein connection, he would still recognized the importance of using his net worth for maximum good.

Maybe the human instinct to leave your possessions to your children is too strong for even Warren to fight.

It's really quite depressing watching the fiasco of how Mackenzie Bezos is donating her fortunes and what seems likely to come from Buffet's children. So many resources created+collected by brilliant people and then squandered by their loved ones.

sleazebreeze• 2 years ago

What is the fiasco of Mackenzie Bezos? I have read about her yearly donations, but I am not aware of a controversy.

bdangubic• 2 years ago

there is no fiasco, she is the biggest philantropist alive today

jdsully• 2 years ago

The article author seems a bit salty at this turn of events.

Mistletoe• 2 years ago

I think we all should be. Buffett was one of the good guys, a Democrat, saying the rich need to be taxed more etc. Now he just takes it all back to be spent in probably the most idiotic fashion imaginable by his nepo babies.

SaintSeiya• 2 years ago

Yeah sure, this tax loopholes should be illegal. Is just a less immoral way of paying 0 taxes and ensuring the money will stay on the family forever.

tim333• 2 years ago

Technically the best thing to do with the money might be to burn it. That would free up the government to issue money for whatever things it figues best for society, hopefully in a professional manner rather than arbitrarily.

andriesm2• 2 years ago

Do you think government is best at directing charitable money?

Personally I think the best use of such a fortune, 100bn say, it to invest $1m into $1m high potential new small businesses and startups.

That would create the most wealth for the most people.

You could even decide to pick one poor country with reasonable governance, and use 10 percent of the money for oversight and assessing merits of which business proposals to fund.

Imagine a million new businesses across Africa, or across India or across countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines each got funded with 1m usd.

Imagine how many jobs would be created, how much long term economic impact there would be.

Even assuming 80 percent of the funded businesses fail, 200,000 successful new businesses, plus another 800k entrepreneurs who all learned a valuable lesson and gained a ton of experience.

replwoacause• 2 years ago

Do we know his reasoning for reneging on this offer to donate everything to the Gates Foundation? Anything to do with Bill’s conduct?

Warren Buffett is no longer donating his money at death to the Gates Foundation

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