Jul 16, 2026
Warren Buffett was all too happy to donate billions to the Gates Foundation over the past two decades, but according to a new press release from Berkshire Hathaway, that stream of shares may stop forever.
On July 14, Buffett’s holding company announced the “Oracle of Omaha” will distribute 12 million Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares to four family-run charities. The bulk of these shares (nine million) will go to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named after Warren Buffett’s late wife.
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The remaining three million shares will be split evenly among the charities headed by Buffett’s children: the Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and the Novo Foundation.
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At today’s price, 12 million Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares are worth roughly $5.9 billion.
In Buffett’s brief statement, he explained that he hopes “to dispose of all of my Berkshire shares within about eight years.” Although Buffett admitted that “mortality is unpredictable,” he made a commitment to donate his wealth to these four foundations “one way or the other by December 31, 2034.”
The press release noted that Buffett now holds 188,290 Class A shares and 1,162 Class B shares, totaling roughly $138 billion at today’s prices.
Bill Gates gets the boot as preferred Berkshire charity
The big news from Buffett’s latest charitable announcement wasn’t so much who he’s giving shares to, but who he snubbed: Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates.
Back in 2006, Buffett made a famous pledge to the Gates Foundation that he’s “irrevocably committing to make annual gifts of Berkshire Hathaway ‘B’ shares throughout my lifetime.” Since that year, Buffett sent the lion’s share of his donations to this charity, totaling $47 billion, according to the Gates Foundation.
In response to Berkshire’s press release, the Gates Foundation said it was “grateful to Warren Buffett for his decades of support for our work” and that it’s in a “position of financial strength to advance our work through 2045, supported by Bill’s $200 billion commitment.”
Moneywise reached out to the Gates Foundation, but the organization offered no further comment beyond its press release.
Buffett and Gates had a public falling out after connections between Gates and convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein came to light. According to NBC News, Gates admitted to extramarital affairs and said he made a “huge mistake” connecting with Epstein. However, he maintained he didn’t do anything “illicit.”
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In an interview with CNBC, Buffett called the entire situation “distasteful,” but he also admitted that, “While he made mistakes, I made mistakes, hiring all kinds of people, or choosing friends, and then finding out later that, one way or [the] other, they weren’t what I thought they were. I found nothing in there that was beyond what I could picture myself doing.”
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Is Buffett bound by law to honor his pledge?
Given the Gates Foundation’s expression of gratitude, it doesn’t seem like they’ll take legal action against Buffett for not honoring his supposed lifetime pledge.
But if the Gates Foundation went after Buffett in court, would it have a case?
There isn’t a national law on this topic, but §90 of the legal treatise The Restatement (Second) of Contracts lends the Gates Foundation some weight. This section goes over the concept of “promissory estoppel,” which opens the door to treating promises similar to contracts in certain cases. To oversimplify, if someone makes a promise that they should expect another person to rely on — and that person does rely on it — a court might enforce the promise.
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But keep in mind that this isn’t an enforceable law, and each state may have different interpretations. Also, there’s a lot in Buffett’s case that may make it harder for the Gates Foundation to go after charitable donations, even if it wanted them.
In Buffett’s 2006 statement, there were conditions the Gates Foundation had to meet to be eligible for his donations, such as minimum annual spending requirements and remaining a qualified charity. Also, Buffett gave his shares in annual donations that fluctuated, so it’s harder to argue that the Gates Foundation could reasonably expect to receive a fixed share count annually.
Speaking with Reuters, Professor Ray Madoff from Boston College Law School made it clear that “A promise to make a gift in the future is not legally binding unless you get consideration.” At the same time, however, Madoff said that since Buffett told the Gates Foundation it could “rely on [his] gift to expand operations,” it might “create a claim for the Gates Foundation, if it relied on Buffett’s promise to its detriment.”
So, if the Gates Foundation really was desperate for donations, it’s not impossible to try forcing Buffett to change his estate plan.
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Eric Esposito is a freelance contributor on MoneyWise who loves making financial topics accessible and understandable to readers. In addition to MoneyWise, Eric’s work can be found in publications such as WallStreetZen and CoinDesk.
