Warren Buffett Donates $6bn in Berkshire Shares, Reinforces His Longstanding Philanthropic Pledge

Warren Buffett, the legendary billionaire investor and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, has announced a fresh charitable donation totaling $6 billion worth of Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares.

The move is the latest installment in Buffett’s nearly two-decade commitment to give away the bulk of his wealth, and it cements his place among the most prolific philanthropists in history.

In a statement released Friday, Buffett said he donated 12.4 million Class B shares to five philanthropic organizations, led by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, which will receive 9.4 million shares, worth approximately $4.6 billion.

The remainder of the shares were distributed among four family-linked charities: the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, the Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, and the NoVo Foundation, each receiving about 660,000 shares.

Buffett, now 94 years old, remains one of the wealthiest people on the planet, with a net worth of $152 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. He first pledged in 2006 to donate the vast majority of his fortune to philanthropic causes and has since made annual contributions, steadily reducing his stake in Berkshire without ever selling shares for personal gain.

“When originally made, I owned 474,998 Berkshire A shares worth about $43 billion and those shares represented more than 98% of my net worth,” Buffett said. “During the following 19 years, I have neither bought nor sold any A or B shares nor do I intend to do so.”

Today, Buffett owns 198,117 Class A shares and 1,144 Class B shares, representing over 99% of his fortune. He emphasized that the value of the shares he has already donated — over $60 billion — exceeds his entire net worth when he first made the 2006 pledge.

Reflecting on his wealth, Buffett downplayed any sense of financial genius. “Nothing extraordinary has occurred at Berkshire,” he wrote, attributing his success to “a very long runway, simple and generally sound decisions, the American tailwind, and compounding effects.”

Buffett’s latest donation again elevates the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, which has been a key beneficiary of his wealth since 2006. The Gates Foundation, co-founded by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his then-wife Melinda French Gates, is one of the largest private foundations in the world. It focuses heavily on global health, poverty alleviation, education, and climate adaptation, with projects ranging from vaccine distribution in Africa to sanitation improvements in South Asia. As of 2023, the foundation had disbursed over $77 billion in grants since its inception.

Earlier this year, Gates announced a plan to give all his wealth out by 2060, with most going into charity work in Africa.

Another modern titan of philanthropy, MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has rapidly redefined charitable giving in recent years. After her 2019 divorce settlement, she committed to giving away the majority of her wealth and has since disbursed over $17 billion to more than 1,600 organizations. Scott’s strategy emphasizes no-strings-attached donations, trusting recipients to allocate funds based on their own judgment, often benefiting underfunded nonprofits in education, racial justice, women’s health, and rural development.

Buffett co-founded the Giving Pledge in 2010 alongside Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, encouraging billionaires worldwide to commit to giving away most of their wealth. Despite his age, Buffett has continued to fulfill that pledge without pause.

His focus on slow, compounding generosity mirrors the investment principles that built Berkshire Hathaway into one of the world’s most valuable companies.

With this latest donation, Buffett not only reiterates his philanthropic vision but also signals to a new generation of billionaires that generosity, not accumulation, is the enduring mark of legacy.