Buffett Postpones Annual Gift to Gates Foundation

Warren Buffett will postpone his customary multi-billion dollar midyear gift to the Gates Foundation to wait for a review into the foundation’s ties with Jeffrey Epstein, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday night.

The famous investor, who at 95 remains chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, will delay his decision until later in the year, possibly revealing his plans in his annual Thanksgiving letter, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with his plans.

A spokesman for Buffett did not immediately respond to an email from the Chronicle Tuesday morning. The Gates Foundation did not respond to emails and phone calls requesting comment.

If Buffett does decide to end his giving to the Gates Foundation, the move would put additional financial pressure on the world’s largest grant maker and would add to the scrutiny of how Buffett’s three children intend to give away the financier’s vast fortune within a decade of his death.

It could also have a major impact on global health. The foundation’s work in global health and poverty alleviation is more impressive than any of the grant making currently carried out by the foundations led by Buffett’s three children, said Timothy Ogden, managing director of the Financial Access Initiative at New York University. He argues that Buffett will be making a mistake if he allows his moral concerns about Bill Gates’s behavior to influence how he allocates his philanthropy.

“Gates actually has the infrastructure to manage this money,” says Ogden, whose initiative was started with a grant from the Gates Foundation. “I do not believe that the Buffett children have anywhere close to the infrastructure needed to give away $15 billion a year for 10 years continuously and have that money accomplish positive goals in the way that the Gates Foundation has built up its infrastructure to do.”

Mega-Giving Thwarted by a Frayed Relationship

Buffett surprised the philanthropic world two decades ago with a massive pledge of Berkshire stock to the foundation run by then close friend Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda. Buffett has given the foundation nearly $48 billion since 2006, and the annual donations have been growing as Berkshire stock has appreciated, reaching a peak of nearly $4.6 billion in 2025.

But Buffett’s relationship with the foundation and Gates has been fraying for years. Initially it was due to the foundation’s spending, including on consultants, that rubbed the famously frugal investor the wrong way. The delay this year is due to Gates’s ties to Epstein, which were also a factor in the Gates’s divorce. Melinda Gates left the foundation in 2024.

Buffett had planned to give the remaining pledged shares — now worth more than $80 billion —  to the Gates Foundation upon his death. But he reversed course on that plan two years ago  and said then that all of his remaining assets would go to a charitable trust overseen by his three children upon his death. Buffett has instructed his children to give away those funds — now estimated by Forbes at $147-billion — within 10 years of his death.

Critics of wealth inequality say the tough decision-making ahead for Buffett — whether he continues to support the Gates Foundation in the near term or put even more philanthropic firepower in the hands of his children — highlights the need for policies that ensure greater distribution of American wealth.

“It’s just a testament to how unbelievable the magnitude of inequality in this country has become and how gargantuan of a task it is to have this much wealth and then be responsible for giving it away,” says Bella DeVaan, associate director of the Charity Reform Initiative at the Institute for Policy Studies. “Regular people should have the ability to give more money if this is the impossible undertaking of people who are very wealthy.”

Gates Foundation Adjusts to a Future Without Buffett

With the Buffett funds paying for about 40 percent of Gates Foundation spending over the past two decades, the foundation has been preparing for a future without that support. In May 2025, the Gates Foundation said it would accelerate its plans to sunset, ending operations by 2045. In January of this year, the Gates Foundation said it would cut 500 jobs — about 20 percent of its work force — by 2030. Bill Gates has said he will make additional gifts from his personal wealth to cover the foundation’s spending needs.

The Journal reported that the Gates Foundation has hired the law firm WilmerHale to examine its ties to Epstein, the convicted sex offender who died by suicide in 2019.