Warren Buffett Redirects Annual Donation Amidst Gates Foundation Review

New York. American billionaire investor Warren Buffett has this year transferred his traditional annual donation not to the Gates Foundation but to four philanthropic organizations related to his own family. Buffett was one of the founding trustees of the Gates Foundation.

He had also launched The Giving Pledge campaign with Bill Gates and his then-wife Melinda French Gates to encourage billionaires to donate a large portion of their wealth. Even after resigning from the Foundation's board in 2021, he had been donating billions of dollars annually.

However, this year Buffett has stopped his regular donation. According to the Wall Street Journal, he decided to stop the donation until the review being conducted by the Gates Foundation through external legal experts is completed. That review is investigating the relationship between the Foundation and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. 

95-year-old Buffett has stated that his philanthropic activities will continue even without donating to the Gates Foundation. In a statement, he expressed his expectation that his three children will distribute all his shares in Berkshire Hathaway through donations by December 31, 2034.

Currently, Berkshire Hathaway has a market value of approximately 1.1 trillion dollars, and Buffett owns about 30 percent of the company's shares. Previously, most of Buffett's donations went to the Gates Foundation. According to the Foundation, Buffett had donated over 36 billion US dollars by 2022. Even after that, he continued to donate shares worth billions of dollars of Berkshire Hathaway every year.

However, after the relationship between Bill Gates and Jeffrey Epstein became public, the friendship between Buffett and Gates is said to have been affected. In an interview in March this year, Buffett clarified that he is not currently in contact with Gates but has no regrets about the donations he made to the Gates Foundation in the past.

Meanwhile, Bill Gates told a US House of Representatives committee last month that he had no knowledge of Epstein's crimes. He had previously apologized to Foundation staff, admitting that his relationship with Epstein was a big mistake, but has maintained that he did not commit any personal wrongdoing.

Buffett, on the other hand, stated that he has never met Jeffrey Epstein in his life and has had no contact with him. He also said that he has not discussed the Epstein case with Bill Gates. He stated that it would not be appropriate to say much until this matter is clarified, and expressed his wish that he would not have to testify under oath in court about the Epstein-Gates relationship.