Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has announced plans to give away nearly all of his $200 billion wealth, leaving only one percent for himself and his family.
In a blog post on Gates Notes, he stated, “People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that ‘he died rich’ will not be one of them. There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people.”
Gates plans to donate the vast majority of his wealth over the next 20 years through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which will close its doors permanently on December 31, 2045. He revealed that only about $1.6 billion, or one percent of his wealth, will be left for himself and his family, potentially going to his three adult children: Phoebe, Rory, and Jennifer.
The Gates Foundation has spent over $100 billion on global health, education, and poverty alleviation since its founding in 2000. Gates highlighted the organization’s achievements, including saving over 80 million lives through partnerships with Gavi and the Global Fund, and supporting the creation of a new vaccine for rotavirus that reduced child deaths from diarrhea by 75 percent.
“I think 20 years is the right balance between giving as much as we can to make progress on these things and giving people a lot of notice that now this money will be gone,” Gates said in an interview with the Associated Press. The decision to accelerate the foundation’s spending comes after Gates reevaluated the organization’s original plan to sunset several decades after his death.