#gates-foundation

#gates-foundation

This year, the Gates Foundation will spend a record $9 billion and cut as many as 500 staff jobs during the next five years as the world's largest private foundation plans to shutter. The foundation's motivation for its move is to accelerate giving to global health, poverty, and education, helping beneficiaries take ambitious bets now rather than maintaining operations indefinitely. These moves underscore how one of the defining philanthropic institutions of this century is reconfiguring for its sunsetting era.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust - now called the Gates Foundation Trust after his ex-wife resigned from the organization - long maintained Microsoft as its largest holding , a legacy of Gates' ongoing stock gifts. One year ago, the holdings were valued at nearly $14 billion and represented one-third of the total. Yet in its third quarter 13F-HR filing, the Trust revealed it sold approximately 17 million shares, slashing its Microsoft position by nearly 65%.

Buffett donated 12.36 million Berkshire Class B shares worth $6 billion, primarily to the Gates Foundation, marking the largest distribution since his philanthropic efforts began.