Bill Gates to donate 99% of wealth to Gates Foundation, which will shut down by 2045

Bill Gates, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft and philanthropist, announced he is donating nearly his entire net worth—approximately $113 billion—to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation over the next 20 years.

Factoring in inflation, this donation gives the Gates Foundation an additional $200 billion over the next two decades to help complete its large-reaching goals: Curing preventable diseases and helping the impoverished. Donating about 99% of his personal wealth will double the speed of the work the foundation is committed to, which factors into Gates’ next part of his plan—to shutter the foundation’s doors in 20 years after the foundation spends the $200 billion and completes its work.

“It’s an incredible group,” Gates told Fortune regarding the Gates Foundation. “And I want to say to them, you are fully funded for the next 20 years. Our resources are nowhere near enough to achieve what everybody should want the world to do.”

In his interview, Gates cited that just one human disease has ever been fully eradicated from the earth—smallpox in 1980. With this type of funding and support over the next two decades, Gates believes the solutions to “probably four or five” other afflictions could have cures. The foundation has already made substantial progress on eliminating polio and malaria, while also reducing the number of deaths caused by tuberculosis and AIDS by approximately 90%.

The Gates Foundation has also made significant improvements to education and technology for American students with low-income backgrounds.

Founded in Seattle in 2000 by then-husband and wife Bill and Melinda Gates, the foundation is set to close in 2045. Initially, the foundation was supposed to exist for 25 years after Bill and Melinda’s deaths. Melinda French Gates stepped down as co-chair in 2024 and created her own foundation.

In total, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation stated it has paid $77.6 billion in grants since its inception, as of the end of 2023.

“I believe Bill is making an excellent decision,” Warren Buffett told Fortune in an email. “Bill is a ‘learner,’ and it shows in the evolution of the foundation. A good bit of his time involves travel for very long distances to work on very unglamorous projects that have the objective of changing the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Bill truly walks the walk.”

Buffett has been the Gates Foundation’s second-largest donor, donating more than $40 billion in total.

Gates’ motivations

Gates cited that he is worried about “drastic cutbacks” in foreign aid contributions from the U.S., other wealthy countries, and some of the foundation’s partners to poorer countries where the foundation operates.

In his second term, President Donald Trump’s administration shut down USAID, the agency that dispenses international aid, while simultaneously withdrawing from the World Health Organization. Other countries have followed suit. The U.K. has reduced its international assistance by 40%, France by 37%, and the Netherlands by 30%.

“Unless the rich countries stay generous,” Gates told Fortune, “the progress is going to stop—and may even go into reverse.”

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