Warren Buffett redirects future Berkshire Hathaway stock donations away from Gates Foundation

Warren Buffett said the Berkshire Hathaway shares he has pledged each year to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will no longer be given to the charity. Instead, the stock will be divided among four foundations that include members of the Buffett family, with the remaining shares to be donated by Dec. 31, 2034.

Buffett, who first pledged the donations in 2006, did not reference Bill Gates or the Epstein controversy in his statement. He previously told CNBC he had not spoken to Gates "since the whole thing was unveiled" and said he did not want to be in a position where he might be called as a witness.

The Gates Foundation expressed gratitude for Buffett’s decades of support and noted that its financial position remains strong, citing Bill Gates’s $200 billion commitment to the organization through 2045.

The change follows Gates’s March testimony before the U.S. House Oversight Committee about his past meetings with Jeffrey Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. Gates acknowledged he should never have met Epstein and that any potential fundraising would not have justified the association.

Buffett and the Gateses co-founded the Giving Pledge in 2010, encouraging ultra-wealthy individuals to commit the majority of their fortunes to philanthropy.