Buffett and Gates ask the rich for their billions

Microsoft founder Gates and major investor Buffett called on their fellow billionaires to donate. Buffett said he was very happy with his decision in 2006 to donate 99% of his approximately $46 billion fortune. There must now be early imitators.

Major investor Warren Buffett and Microsoft founder Bill Gates called on hundreds of billionaires in the United States to donate at least half of their wealth to charity. Buffett, who made his fortune from investment firm Berkshire Hathaway, Gates and his wife Melinda, held a series of dinner parties with very wealthy Americans last year to persuade them to publicly commit to such a move.

Billionaires for a better world

According to Patty Stonecipher, an adviser to Gates and Buffett, four families have so far agreed to such a commitment: real estate and construction billionaire Eli Broad, investor John Doerr, media tycoon Jerry Lenfest, and former Cisco Systems chief John Morgridge.

Broad and his wife, Edith, said they will donate 75% of their wealth to charity during their lifetime and beyond. According to Forbes estimates, it is worth about $5.7 billion.

Finally, do good

Buffett himself handed over 99% of his assets to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2006. Bill and Melinda Gates have so far given the foundation more than $28 billion. Since its founding in 1994, the Foundation has spent more than $22 billion on health projects in poor and needy countries in the United States.