Buffett Cuts Gates Foundation Out of Annual Berkshire Stock Gifts, Speeds Up Timeline to Give It All Away by 2034

Warren Buffett just broke a two-decade streak. This year's annual round of Berkshire Hathaway stock gifts, worth close to $6 billion, went entirely to four family-connected foundations. The Gates Foundation, which has collected more than $47 billion in Berkshire shares since 2006, got nothing.

Berkshire announced the gifts in a news release: 9 million Class B shares, worth around $4.5 billion, to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named for Buffett's late first wife. Another 1 million shares each, worth just under $500 million apiece, went to the Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, and the NoVo Foundation, all run by his three children.

Buffett also announced he's speeding up his entire giveaway. "My goal is to dispose of all of my Berkshire shares within about eight years," he said in the release, setting a hard deadline of December 31, 2034. That's a dramatic acceleration. Even before accounting for stock price gains, hitting that target implies gifting at least $17 billion a year, more than double the roughly $7 billion he gave away last year, according to CNBC. Buffett, who turns 96 next month, said in the release that "mortality is unpredictable," but the shares will get to the four foundations one way or another by the deadline.

Why the Gates Foundation got cut off

In 2006, Buffett wrote a letter to Bill and Melinda Gates pledging to "irrevocably" donate Berkshire shares to their foundation "throughout my lifetime," as long as one of them stayed actively involved. Based on that schedule, which called for a 5% reduction in shares each year, Buffett was due to hand over close to $4.5 billion to the Gates Foundation this month, per CNBC's reporting.

Instead, that money appears to have gone to the four family foundations, which received the Gates Foundation's typical share on top of their usual gifts, according to CNBC's own comparison of this year's total against last year's roughly $1.4 billion.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that Buffett had been holding back his scheduled Gates Foundation donation while a law firm reviewed the foundation's ties to Jeffrey Epstein, with results expected sometime this summer. That review appears to have run past this year's giving date without a resolution, and Buffett moved the money elsewhere rather than wait.

Buffett has been public about the personal rift. In a March interview with CNBC's Becky Quick, he said he hadn't spoken to Bill Gates "at all since the whole thing was unveiled." Asked if the two remained close, Buffett said they'd had "great times together," but added: "Until it gets cleared up, I just don't think it makes sense to do a lot of talking."

What the Epstein connection actually is, and isn't

No criminal charge, indictment, or civil finding has been reported against Gates personally in connection with Epstein. The scrutiny stems from Gates' past association with Epstein, who died in 2019 while facing federal sex-trafficking charges. Gates has previously said meeting Epstein was a mistake he regrets. None of the sources reviewed here allege Gates committed a crime.

What's undisputed is the reputational fallout. The Gates Foundation cut roughly 500 jobs, about 20% of its staff, according to a Wall Street Journal report cited by ZeroHedge. The foundation's CEO reportedly told employees during a town hall that the Gates-Epstein relationship had "deeply tarnished" the nonprofit's reputation, according to the Financial Times. Gates also withdrew as a keynote speaker at a global AI summit in India back in February.

ZeroHedge's coverage goes further, raising the foundation's severed ties last year with Arabella Advisors, a political consulting network the outlet describes as facilitating a web of left-leaning nonprofit funds. That's a separate controversy from the Epstein matter and isn't corroborated by the center-left sources reviewed here. Treat it as a distinct claim rather than folding it into the Epstein story, since Buffett's own statements point specifically to the Epstein-related review as his reason for pausing donations, not the Arabella Advisors matter.

What's next

Berkshire's release didn't say whether Buffett will make his usual Thanksgiving gifts to the four family foundations, which totaled $1.3 billion last year. Given the new eight-year acceleration plan, another round before year's end looks likely.

The bigger open question is whether the law firm review of the Gates Foundation's Epstein ties will change anything. If it clears the foundation, Buffett could resume donations. If it doesn't, a philanthropic relationship built on a 2006 "lifetime pledge" and $47 billion in gifts may be over for good. Buffett hasn't said which outcome he's expecting, and the review's findings haven't been made public yet.