Bill Gates is continuing his mission to give away most of his massive wealth, and with it, his children are set to inherit just a fraction of his growing fortune. Although Gates is worth $116 billion at the time of writing, he expects it to reach $200 billion. Having made his fortune with Microsoft, Bill Gates has now channeled his energy into the Gates Foundation. Originally founded in 2000 as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, it's now held as the third-largest charitable foundation in the world and has $77.2 billion in assets as of December 2024.
Although Elon Musk is by far and away the world's richest man, the Microsoft co-founder had the honor of being the world's richest person for 18 out of 24 years between 1995 and 2017. Adding to his impressive list of accolades, Gates became the world's first centibillionaire in 1999.
Ex-wife Melinda French Gates says she wasn't consulted on her husband's decision to give away his fortune, although she seems at peace with the decision. We previously wrote about how Gates' children will only get $10 million each when he dies, but he's now updated that pledge.
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Speaking at an event in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Gates promised that his pledge will focus on Africa and "unleashing the human potential through health, through education." Saying that "every country in Africa should be on a path to prosperity," the billionaire continued: "I recently made a commitment that my wealth will be given away over the next 20 years. And so you can see, you know, I’m extremely lucky.
"My wealth has gotten to a very high level here. And now, by accelerating my giving, I will have the Gates Foundation take all of those resources."
Referring to his foundation's goals as 'pretty basic', Gates said it speaks for its values: "Mothers should survive delivery. Babies should survive past their fifth birthday – kids should be well nourished. Many of these infectious diseases should go away, and the rest within 20 years should be at a very low level.”
In the aftermath of President Trump and Musk cutting foreign aid as part of gutting USAID, Mozambique's former First Lady Graça Machel thanked Gates for his vow during this 'moment of crisis': "We are counting on Mr Gates' steadfast commitment to continue walking this path of transformation alongside us."
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Although Gates didn’t directly name the current administration, he concluded: "Now, we’re sitting here at a time, actually, of a significant crisis in part of the system where there’s been partnership between countries … Some of those cuts are being made so abruptly that there are complete interruptions in trials, or medicines are still sitting in warehouses and are not available. And these cuts are something that I think are a huge mistake."
Assuming that Gates is sticking to his $10 million promise, that means his children will go from inheriting around 1% of his total wealth to 0.5%. Then again, we wouldn't exactly be turning our noses up at $10 million, no matter how much our father is worth.