Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has ended one of the biggest philanthropic partnerships in history with the Gates Foundation after nearly two decades and $48 billion in donations.
This year, the 95-year-old former Berkshire Hathaway CEO is donating a total of 12 million Class B Berkshire shares to charitable organizations, worth just under $6 billion. In a striking change from the past 19 years—the Gates Foundation will receive none of it.
The news comes as Buffett and Gates’ relationship has deteriorated over the past several years starting with the Microsoft founder’s divorce from philanthropist Melinda French Gates in 2021 and later because of Gates’ alleged ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Buffett is keeping his annual donations close to home this year, with all of the shares designated for foundations associated with or run by his family. The remainder of his $140 billion worth of Berkshire shares will be disbursed by 2034 to the organizations run by his family, he announced Tuesday.
“Of course, mortality is unpredictable, but my remaining shares will be donated to the four foundations one way or the other by December 31, 2034,” he wrote.
Tuesday’s announcement reveals the largest allocation of 9 million shares, worth about $4.5 billion, will go to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, which Buffett founded in 1964 and named after his late wife after her death in 2004. Buffett’s daughter Susie Buffett serves as chair of the organization’s board.
Another 1 million shares worth about $500 million each are destined for the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and the NoVo Foundation, which are run, respectively, by Buffett’s sons Howard Buffett and Peter Buffett. The Sherwood Foundation, which was founded by and is overseen by Susie Buffett, will also receive 1 million shares.
While Buffett has been donating to these family foundations for years, it was the Gates Foundation that received the bulk of the billionaire’s charitable giving for nearly two decades. Even just last year, Buffett donated 9.4 million shares to the Gates Foundation worth a whopping $4.6 billion.
The change in Buffett’s charitable giving is significant given Buffett made an “irrevocable” lifetime pledge to the Gates Foundation in 2006 in which he promised to donate to the Gates Foundation as long as either Bill Gates or Melinda French Gates was alive and actively involved with the organization, among other stipulations.
Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported Buffett would pause his midyear donation to the Gates Foundation so he could see the findings of a review by law firm WilmerHale into the organization’s potential ties to Jeffrey Epstein which is expected to release its results this summer.
A deteriorating relationship
Despite becoming fast friends after meeting at Gates’ parents’ home in 1991 and later working together to create the Giving Pledge, the rupture between Buffett and Gates has been years in the making.
In 2021, Gates and his ex-wife, the philanthropist Melinda French Gates, announced their divorce. In that same year, Buffett stepped down as a trustee for the foundation after 15 years. The departure was seemingly amicable, and at the time Buffett said in a statement: “My goals are 100% in sync with those of the foundation, and my physical participation is in no way needed to achieve these goals.”
Yet, Buffett in an interview with CNBC in March reflected on his resignation from the Gates Foundation, noting “there was a lot I didn’t know.”
Signs of further strain emerged in 2024 when Buffett announced the Gates Foundation would receive no money from his estate after his death. He noted at the time his remaining wealth would go to a charitable trust overseen jointly by his three children.
At the heart of the conflict between the two billionaires is Gates’ alleged links with disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Documents released by the Justice Department earlier this year revealed Epstein spent a decade cultivating connections to people close to Gates, including Gates Foundation advisers, and later leveraged those connections to gain information and influence, Fortune reported.
Gates has not been accused of participating in Epstein’s illegal actions. In written remarks to the House Oversight Committee last month, Gates said he regretted meeting Epstein.
“In the work I do, reputation is the basis for developing partnerships that save lives. Meeting with Epstein was a grave error in judgment and put this work at risk.”
A representative for Buffett did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
In the same interview, Buffett declined to commit to giving more money to the foundation: “I’ll wait and see what unfolds,” with the Epstein files, he said.
Last year, Gates told Fortune the foundation planned to spend more than $200 billion over the following 20 years before paying out its remaining endowment and shutting down in 2045.
“The Gates Foundation is grateful to Warren Buffett for his decades of support for our work. His gifts, totaling more than $47 billion, have helped us expand and deliver on the foundation’s mission to improve health and opportunity for people around the world,” the Gates Foundation said statement to Fortune. “The foundation continues from a position of financial strength to advance our work through 2045, supported by Bill’s $200 billion commitment.”
While in a 2024 interview, Gates said he and Buffett “love talking to each other,” Buffett acknowledged in the March interview he and Gates hadn’t spoken in months.
“I haven’t talked to him at all since the whole thing was unveiled. I don’t want to be in a position where I know things at the moment. I could get called as a witness,” he said.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com