Twenty years ago, the “Oracle of Omaha” made a costly decision.
Buffett shocked the world in 2006 by pledging to give away nearly his entire fortune. Since then, Buffett has donated more than $55 billion worth of Berkshire Hathaway assets to charity, including a $5.3 billion donation in late June that dropped him from No. 8 to No. 10 on Forbes' list of the world's richest people, his lowest ranking in more than 20 years. Forbes estimates his net worth at $128.9 billion.
But what would happen if Buffett, perhaps the greatest philanthropist in history, decided to keep all of Berkshire's shares for himself?
When Buffett made that historic statement in the summer of 2006, he owned 474,998 Class A shares, which were worth about $43 billion at the time. If he still owned all of them today, he'd be sitting on a stock worth $292 billion.
Adding about $1 billion worth of Class B shares and personal investments, the less generous Buffett's wealth will reach about $293 billion. This will make him about $41 billion richer than the world's richest man, Elon Musk (net worth: $252.4 billion); $77 billion more than second-ranked Jeff Bezos (215.9 billion); and $102 billion more than third-ranked Bernard Arnault (191 billion). Buffett's wealth is not only not $6 billion less than his friend Bill Gates (135.2 billion), but will exceed the combined wealth of the two Bill Gates.
In other words, if Warren Buffett hadn't decided to start giving away his wealth, he could easily be the richest person on Earth. In fact, according to Forbes estimates, he's just a hair away from breaking the record for the largest fortune ever, which was set in 2021 when Musk's fortune briefly exceeded $300 billion. In theory, with a fortune of $293 billion, Buffett could personally buy the entire McDonald's Corporation, all the shares of Coca-Cola, or all 50 of the world's 50 most valuable sports teams.
Instead, the famously frugal Buffett has been trying to give away more than 99% of his wealth, largely through a summer tradition of donating billions of dollars from his stock stash to five handpicked foundations, donating more stock each year than before. 5% less per year. "My family and I will not give up anything we need or want in order to fulfill this 99% promise," he once wrote. "I will continue to live in a way that gives me everything I could possibly want in life." way of life.”
The bulk of Buffett's gift went to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation trust, which had received more than $43 billion worth of stock at the time of the donation. Buffett's friend and bridge partner Bill Gates and his then-wife Melinda Frances Gates launched the $75 billion philanthropy in 2000, with the funds going to poverty and health care programs in developing countries and education and economic mobility in the United States. In 2010, Buffett co-founded the Giving Pledge with the Gateses to encourage other billionaires to donate at least half of their wealth to philanthropy. Buffett resigned as a trustee of the Gates Foundation in 2021. Frances Gates divorced Gates that same year and left the foundation earlier this month to pursue her own career.
Buffett's three children and a foundation named after his late wife received the remaining shares, which were earmarked for donations to charities of their choice. More than $4.8 billion worth of shares (at the time of his donation) went to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named after his late wife, which focuses on health care and education. (That money doesn't include at least $2.9 billion that Susan's estate donated to the foundation after her death in 2004.) In total, Buffett has donated more than $8 billion (at the time of his donation) to his children's three charities: the Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, and the NoVo Foundation.
After nearly two decades of giving, the 93-year-old investor has slashed his holdings of Berkshire Class A shares to 207,963, which were still worth about $128 billion as of July 8. He plans to donate shares to the five foundations annually until his death. But in a November letter and a Wall Street Journal interview published in late June, he said he has decided that Buffett's fortune after his death will go almost entirely to charitable trusts managed by his children, rather than primarily to the Gates Foundation as previously thought. Ultimately, Buffett and his estate's executors will give more than 99% of his wealth to charity.
“Society needs my money, but I don’t,” Buffett wrote in 2021. He has lived in the same relatively modest house in Omaha, Nebraska, since 1958 and often eats at McDonald’s, paying with loose change.
#美国大选如何影响加密产业？ #美国6月CPI大幅降温 #币安7周年 #BTC #ETH
