Warren Buffett surprised the world in 2006 by pledging to give away nearly all of his huge riches. Buffett has donated more than $55 billion from Berkshire Hathaway to charity, including a $5.3 billion contribution in late June that dropped him from 8th to 10th on Forbes’ list of the world’s richest individuals, his lowest placement in almost two decades.Forbes estimates his net worth at $128.9 billion.
What if Buffett, one of history’s greatest philanthropists, decided to keep all his Berkshire shares for himself?
When Buffett made that historic declaration in the summer of 2006, he owned 474,998 class A shares, worth around $43 billion at the time. If he still owned all of that stock now, it would be worth $292 billion.
Add in another $1 billion or so in class B shares and personal assets, and a less benevolent Buffett would have a fortune of almost $293 billion. That would put him $41 billion ahead of the world’s current richest person, Elon Musk (net worth: $252.4 billion), $77 billion ahead of Jeff Bezos ($215.9 billion), and $102 billion ahead of third-place Bernard Arnault ($191 billion). Instead of being $6 billion less wealthy than his pal Bill Gates ($135.2 billion), Buffett would be worth more than both Bill Gateses put together.
In other words, if Warren Buffett hadn’t decided to start giving away his money, he would easily be the wealthiest person on the planet. According to Forbes, Musk is on track to beat the record for the highest fortune ever set in 2021, when he briefly exceeded $300 billion. Buffett’s $293 billion fortune would allow him to acquire the entire McDonald’s Corporation, Coca-Cola shares, or all 50 of the world’s most valuable sports franchises.
Instead, the famously thrifty Buffett has been striving to give away more than 99% of his fortune, primarily through a summer practice of donating billions of dollars to five handpicked charities from his stock portfolio, with each year’s gift containing 5% less shares than the preceding year. “My family and I will give up nothing we need or want by fulfilling this 99% pledge,” the author previously stated. “I will continue to live in a manner that gives me everything that I could possibly want in life.”
The majority of Buffett’s gifts have gone to a trust that funds the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which received stock valued at more than $43 billion at the time of the gift. Buffett’s friend and bridge partner Bill Gates and his then-wife Melinda French Gates established a $75 billion (endowment) organization in 2000 to support poverty and healthcare efforts in underdeveloped nations, as well as education and economic mobility in the United States. Buffett and the Gateses launched The Giving Pledge in 2010 to encourage other billionaires to donate at least half of their assets to philanthropic organizations. Buffett resigned as a trustee of the Gates Foundation in 2021. French Gates divorced Gates the same year and left the foundation earlier this month to go out on her own.
Buffett’s three children and a foundation named after his late wife have received the remaining shares as gifts, with the proceeds going to their preferred charities. More than $4.8 billion in shares (at the time of his contributions) were donated to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, a healthcare and education charity named after his late wife. (This figure does not include at least $2.9 billion donated to the charity by Susan’s estate after her death in 2004.) And Buffett has donated more than $8 billion to his children’s charities: the Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, and the NoVo Foundation.
After nearly two decades of giving, the 93-year-old investor has reduced his Berkshire investment to 207,963 class A shares, which are still valued over $128 billion as of July 8. He intends to continue donating stock to the five foundations every year until he dies. In a November letter and a June interview with The Wall Street Journal, Buffett revealed that his remaining fortune will primarily benefit his children’s charitable trust, rather than the Gates Foundation, as previously thought. After all is said and done, Buffett and his estate executors will have donated more than 99% of his riches to charity.
“Society has a use for my money,” Buffett wrote in 2021, after living in the same relatively modest home in Omaha, Nebraska, since 1958 and frequently stopping at McDonald’s for lunches, paying in exact change. “I don’t.”