Bill Gates to give away 99% of wealth, Gates Foundation to close by 2045
Bill Gates donation will be delivered over time and allow the foundation to spend an additional $200 billion over the next 20 years.
Bill Gates announced on Thursday that the Gates Foundation will close in 2045, following the donation of 99 percent of his remaining wealth, estimated at $107 billion.
The foundation’s donation will be distributed over time, enabling it to spend an additional $200 billion over the next 20 years, reported Associated Press.
“It's kind of thrilling to have that much to be able to put into these causes,” Gates told the news agency.
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He added, “I think 20 years is the right balance between giving as much as we can to make progress on these things and giving people a lot of notice that now this money will be gone.”
Bill Gates' pledge will be one of the largest philanthropic contributions made by an industrialist, outdoing other historic donations by American tycoons John D Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie.
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His foundation, which supports several causes, has made a sustained effort to work towards ending poverty and promoting global health and education.
About 41 per cent of the foundation's money so far has come from fellow industrialist Warren Buffett and the rest from Bill Gates' profits made at Microsoft.
The Gates Foundation's legacy
The foundation was established by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates in 2000, and initially began collaborating with companies to drive down the cost of medical treatments so low and middle-income countries could afford them.
Over the last 25 years, they have spent $100 billion that has been directed towards new scientific research, developing technology, health and sanitation programmes and more.
“As I was learning about what children die of, you know, HIV and diarrhoea and pneumonia, were all things that I was stunned how little was going into helping the poor countries,” Gates said in an interview with The Associated Press.
As one of the world's largest charitable organisations, The Gates Foundation helped establish Gavi, a vaccine alliance that funds and distributes vaccines for children, and the Global Fund, which, along with governments, funds the treatment and control of HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.
Gates has stated that the impactful nature of the work has made it his second and final career. Further, he added that he would love for other billionaires to also contribute and outpace his work.
“I'd love to be beat in all of this work. Somebody should try and pay more taxes than I did, and save more lives than I did, and give more money than I did, and be smarter than I've been," he said.
