The richest man on the earth has once again given a huge amount of money in a donation. Bill Gates, the Microsoft’s Founder, turned in as much as 64 million of Microsoft Shares in charity. The total shares value up to $4.6bn makes up 5 percent of Bill Gates’ total wealth. According to a report as published by the US Securities and Exchange Commission Bill Gates donated the amount to his foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Bill Gates has also initiated a new campaign against Malaria this Tuesday.
This amount of money the biggest one that he has donated in this century i.e after having formed the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He founded Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000 with an initial funding of 5bn dollars. This very Foundation is now the World’s biggest private charity foundation. The current donation inches below that figure by only a small margin.
The philanthropist nature of the Microsoft’s co-founder can be seen by the fact that he now owns just a fraction of the company. H ownership over Microsoft has reduced from 24% to just 1.3% in about 20 years.
The richest man of the world has also partnered with another US-based multi-billionaire. He along with the CEO at Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet, started a philanthropic project “Giving Pledge”. This project was aimed at asking the world’s richest human beings to donate half of their money to charity. Out of his extensive philanthropy, the personal wealth of Bill Gates has taken a dip. Only a few days ago, the CEO of Amazon namely Jeff Bezos, took over Bill Gates to be the richest person in the world for a brief time.
Source — The Guardian, Image — CNBC
