Warren Buffett plans to donate entire Berkshire fortune 'one way or another' by 2034
Warren Buffett plans to donate virtually all of his remaining wealth by 2034.
The famed investor and Berkshire Hathaway chairman, who turns 96 next month and holds more than 99% of his net worth in his company’s stock, shared his target in a news release on Tuesday.
“My goal is to dispose of all of my Berkshire shares within about eight years,” Buffett wrote. He currently owns nearly $150 billion worth of Berkshire stock, including $6 billion of shares he intends to donate to four of his family’s foundations.
Buffett, who has given away more than half of his wealth since 2006, left the Gates Foundation off his list of recipients this year for the first time in two decades. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Buffett would do so pending a review of the foundation’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Buffett’s latest gift comprises 12 million Class B shares — 9 million to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation and 1 million each to the Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, and the NoVo Foundation.
Last summer, Buffett donated 12.4 million Class B shares worth about $6 billion, with 9.4 million shares going to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, 943,000 shares to the foundation named after his late first wife, and around 660,000 shares to each of his three children’s foundations.
Buffett said in the news release that he hopes his kids — Susan, Howard, and Peter — can distribute all of his shares to good causes by December 31, 2034.
He added that “mortality is unpredictable,” so “one way or the other,” he’ll donate all of his remaining 188,290 Class A shares and 1,162 Class B shares to the four foundations by that date.
“The goal is to have the grants grow annually to each of the three foundations managed by each of my children and the annual grant to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation grow at a somewhat greater rate,” Buffett said.
Buffett wrote in his latest Thanksgiving letter that he would “step up” his pace of giving as his children are in their late 60s and early 70s, and he wanted them to be able to disburse “what will essentially be my entire estate” during their lifetimes.
The legendary investor, one of the world’s 10 wealthiest people, retired as Berkshire CEO at the end of last year after 60 years in charge, making way for Greg Abel.