Gates, world’s richest man, pledges $4.6bn in donation, largest since 2000

Bill Gates, the world’s richest man and co-founder of the revolutionary technology company, Microsoft, made his largest donation since the year 2000 by giving away Microsoft Corp. shares that accounted for five percent of his fortune, the world’s biggest, it emerged Monday.

A report by news agency, Bloomberg, monitored by Businessamlive, showed billionaire Gates donated 64 million of the Microsoft’s shares valued at $4.6 billion on June 6, filing made at the Securities & Exchange Commission and released on Monday showed. While the recipient of the gift wasn’t specified, Gates has made the majority of his donations to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the charity he and his wife use to direct their philanthropic efforts, according to the news agency.

It’s the largest gift of Microsoft shares that Gates has made since 2000. The 61-year-old gave away $16 billion worth of Microsoft shares in 1999 and $5.1 billion a year later, according to Bloomberg’s calculation.

Spokesmen for Microsoft and Gates didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Bill and Melinda Gates have given away about $35 billion of stock and cash since 1994, based on the value of the shares at the time of gifts, according to a review of two decades worth of Gates Foundation tax returns, annual reports, and regulatory filings. Gates created the Giving Pledge in 2010 with billionaire investor Warren Buffett, and the pair have been joined by 168 others who’ve promised to give the majority of their wealth to charity.

Gates has probably directed more than 700 million shares of Microsoft into the foundation, adjusting for stock splits. Those would be worth about $50 billion today had he held onto them. The June gift represents 38 percent of his holdings in the company and is the latest in a long line of Microsoft share disposals that have whittled his stake down from 24 percent in 1996 to 1.3 percent today.

Gates remains the richest person on earth after the donation with a fortune the Bloomberg Billionaires Index values at $86.1 billion. The drop once again puts Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos close to the top spot. Bezos, whose fortune has risen 30 percent since Jan. 1, briefly leapfrogged Gates to become the world’s richest person based on intraday prices last month.