Bill Gates Announces Plan to Give $200 Billion to Foundation by 2045

‘This is a change from our original plans,’ the Microsoft co-founder said.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates attends a session at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos on Jan. 17, 2024. Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Thursday announced his plans to donate around $200 billion of his fortune over the next two decades to his own foundation and said that it would shut down by the year 2045.

In an article published on his foundation’s website, Gates said, “I will give away virtually all my wealth through the Gates Foundation over the next 20 years to the cause of saving and improving lives around the world,” adding that his foundation will “permanently” close on Dec. 31, 2045.

“This is a change from our original plans. When Melinda and I started the Gates Foundation in 2000, we included a clause in the foundation’s very first charter: The organization would sunset several decades after our deaths,” he said, referring to his former wife, Melinda French Gates.

“A few years ago, I began to rethink that approach. More recently, with the input from our board, I now believe we can achieve the foundation’s goals on a shorter timeline, especially if we double down on key investments and provide more certainty to our partners.”

Gates made the announcement on the foundation’s 25th anniversary. He set up the organization with his wife in 2000, and they were later joined by billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

Gates, who is valued at around $108 billion today, expects the foundation to spend around $200 billion by 2045, with the final figure dependent on markets and inflation.

According to FoundationSource, private entities such as the Gates Foundation are classified as tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organizations by the IRS. They’re not subject to either federal or state estate taxes.

“I hope other wealthy people consider how much they can accelerate progress for the world’s poorest if they increased the pace and scale of their giving, because it is such a profoundly impactful way to give back to society,” Gates said in the article.

However, his foundation has faced criticism over its outsize power and influence in the field without the requisite accountability, including at the World Health Organization (WHO). Gates himself also made controversial statements about COVID-19 and vaccines during the pandemic.

French Gates departed the Gates Foundation in 2024 after her divorce from Gates, saying at the time that she would commit some $12.5 billion to the foundation under the terms of their separation agreement.

“This is not a decision I came to lightly,” she said in a statement issued on social media last year. “I am immensely proud of the foundation that Bill and I built together and of the extraordinary work it is doing to address inequities around the world.”

Gates told the Wall Street Journal in January that he met with then-President-elect Donald Trump to talk about global health issues and then asked him about vaccines.

“He, in the COVID days, accelerated the vaccine innovation,” Gates told the outlet. “So I was asking him if maybe the same kind of thing could be done here, and we both got, I think, pretty excited about that.”

After taking office, Trump ordered the United States to withdraw from the WHO as well as a WHO-backed pandemic agreement that was announced by the U.N. health organization in mid-April.

Three years ago, Gates made a similar announcement about giving away most of his wealth to the Gates Foundation. His article published Thursday provided more details about the plan.

Reuters contributed to this report.