Bill Gates gives Rs 29,950 to charity in biggest donation since 2000

Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and is an American business magnate and philanthropist, popularly known as the world’s richest man, has donated Rs 29,950 crore ($4.6bn) or (£3.6bn) on June 6, 2017, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings released Monday, August 15, 2017. Bill Gates or its Foundation has not given any statement in this development.

The recipient of the gift was not stated. It is believed that the wealth may go to the foundation only.

This giving is the biggest charitable donation made anywhere in the world so far this year, overtaking a $3.2bn contribution by investor Warren Buffett, who is also a foundation trustee, to the Gates foundation last month. Warren Buffett is also a foundation trustee at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Launched in the year 2000, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, known as the Gates Foundation, is a global social organization founded by Bill and Melinda Gates working to improve healthcare and reduce extreme poverty. He and his wife set up foundation with Rs. 320,500,000 ($5bn) funding.

“The shares donated represent about 5% of his current $90bn fortune. The gift reduces Gates’s stake in Microsoft, which the 61-year-old co-founded in 1975, to just 1.3% from 24% in 1996.”, theguardian.com said in its recent report.

Bill and Melinda Gates have donated $35bn since 1994. They donated $16bn worth of Microsoft shares in 1999 and followed it up with another $5.1bn a year later. The Gates Foundation has grown to become the world’s largest private charity with $40.3bn of funds, before the latest gift.

In 2010, the Gates and Warren Buffett created the Giving Pledge, a promise to give at least half of their wealth to charity, and called on other billionaires to join them. More than 170 of the world’s richest people, including Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Bloomberg and George Lucas, have so far signed up.

In his latest ‘letter from Bill and Milinda Gates’, Bill Gates said, “Our friend and co-trustee Warren Buffett once gave us some great advice about philanthropy: “Don’t just go for safe projects,” he said. “Take on the really tough problems.”