Warren Buffett is speeding up the giveaway of his fortune, announcing Tuesday a roughly $6 billion stock donation and a pledge to hand over his entire remaining stake in Berkshire Hathaway within about eight years — while pointedly leaving the Gates Foundation off his list for the first time in two decades.
In a statement released Tuesday, Berkshire Hathaway said the 95-year-old chairman would convert 8,000 Class A shares into 12 million Class B shares and distribute them among four foundations tied to his family. The largest gift, 9 million Class B shares worth about $4.4 billion, goes to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named for his late first wife and chaired by his daughter, Susie Buffett. Three foundations run by his children — the Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and the NoVo Foundation — will each receive 1 million shares worth roughly $496 million.
Buffett laid out an explicit deadline. His stated goal is to “dispose of all of my Berkshire shares within about eight years,” he said, adding that his remaining stake would go to the four foundations “one way or the other” by December 31, 2034. He said he wants the annual grants to grow over time, with the gift to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation rising at a somewhat faster rate. Buffett currently holds 188,290 Class A shares and 1,162 Class B shares, a fortune Forbes values at about $147 billion, making him the world’s tenth-wealthiest person.
The mechanics reflect careful control. Buffett is giving away easily transferable Class B stock — created in 1996 so smaller investors could own a piece of Berkshire — while keeping his Class A shares, which carry nearly all the voting power. That structure has let him donate tens of billions of dollars over the years without loosening his grip on the company he built.
The headline break is with the Gates Foundation. For the first time since 2006, Buffett omitted the charity founded by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates from his annual gifts. Under the declining schedule he set years ago, he had been due to donate roughly $4.5 billion to the foundation this month. The move follows renewed scrutiny of Gates’s past ties to Jeffrey Epstein after the U.S. Justice Department released documents earlier this year. The Wall Street Journal had reported that Buffett was holding back his scheduled gift pending a law firm’s review of the foundation’s Epstein connections. Gates appeared before the House Oversight Committee last month, calling his association with Epstein a “grave error in judgment” and telling lawmakers he neither witnessed nor took part in any criminal conduct.
The rift has been building. Buffett resigned as a Gates Foundation trustee in 2021, and in 2024 he told the Journal that the foundation would receive nothing from his estate after his death, having revised his will to make his three children trustees of a charitable trust holding more than 99% of his wealth. Over roughly two decades, Buffett’s gifts to the Gates Foundation totaled between $43 billion and $48 billion measured at the value of the shares when donated. In a statement, the foundation thanked Buffett for what it called decades of support.
The announcement matters to investors as much as to the philanthropic world. Buffett’s plan to offload his entire Berkshire position over eight years creates a steady, predictable stream of shares flowing to foundations that typically sell over time to fund their operations — a long-running supply overhang the market will have to absorb. It also underscores that the Buffett era is drawing to a close. He stepped down as chief executive at the end of 2025, handing the reins to Greg Abel, and now serves only as chairman. Berkshire shares have slipped about 8% from their record high set in May of last year, just before he announced his exit, even as the S&P 500 climbed 32% over the same stretch.
For the broader economy, the decision reshapes one of the largest philanthropic pipelines in the world. Redirecting billions annually toward foundations led by his children concentrates enormous giving power in the Buffett family and away from the global health and development work the Gates Foundation is known for. Buffett, who co-founded the Giving Pledge with the Gateses in 2010 and has promised to give away more than 99% of his wealth, is now racing to finish the job on his own timeline — and on his own terms.
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