Bill Gates To Donate 99% Of His $200 Billion Wealth: Who Will Benefit?
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Bill Gates plans to donate 99% of his $200 billion wealth by 2045, to improve health and education in Africa over the next 20 years. Gates Foundation will end operations by 2045.
Bill Gates, co-founder of tech giant Microsoft, is planning to donate 99% of his wealth, mainly to improve health and education services in Africa, over the next 20 years. The wealth of the world's fifth richest person, which currently stands at about $175 billion as per the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, is expected to touch nearly $200 billion by 2045, the year by which his foundation plans to end its operations.
Speaking at the African Union headquarters at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, recently, the 69-year-old billionaire, according to BBC, said, 'I recently made a commitment that my wealth will be given away over the next 20 years. The majority of that funding will be spent on helping you address challenges here in Africa."
Last month, Gates announced his commitment to donate 99% of his wealth by 2045.
The Gates Foundation said it had three priorities: ending preventable deaths of mothers and babies, ensuring the next generation grows up without having to suffer from deadly infectious diseases, and lifting millions of people out of poverty.
Most of Bill Gates's wealth comes from Cascade Investment, a holding firm established using the earnings from his Microsoft stock sales and dividends.
According to Bloomberg data analysis, Gates has accumulated over $60 billion through stock and dividend income from Microsoft and other firms. This includes a notable $3.3 billion dividend payout in 2004, which he contributed to his charitable foundation.
Currently, Gates holds around 1% of Microsoft, the world's leading software company. He resigned from Microsoft's board in March 2020, and his ownership details haven't appeared in proxy filings since then. Holdings under the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which supports global health, education, and poverty relief, are excluded from his personal net worth estimate.
Consistent with his long-standing views on wealth and inheritance, Gates plans to leave only 1% of his fortune to his children.
Gates Foundation to Wind Down by 2045
Bill Gates has announced that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will conclude its operations on December 31, 2045, several decades before originally intended. This decision aligns with his commitment to donate 99% of his estimated $200 billion fortune over the next two decades.
Bill Gates Advocates For Use Of AI
Gates is advocating for the use of technological advancements, including artificial intelligence, to enhance healthcare outcomes in Africa. He cited Rwanda's use of AI-enabled ultrasound technology to identify high-risk pregnancies as an example of how innovation can improve health services.
He urged the continent's youth to leverage AI to strengthen healthcare systems, drawing a parallel to how mobile phones transformed financial services across Africa.
'Africa largely skipped traditional banking. Now you have a chance, as you build your next generation healthcare systems, to think about how AI is built into that," Gates said.
First Published:
June 03, 2025, 16:43 IST
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