Melinda Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, attends the opening ceremony of the Generation Equality Forum at the Louvre Carrousel in Paris, France, June 30, 2021. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo
Feb 2 (Reuters) – Melinda French Gates is no longer pledging to donate most of her wealth to the charitable foundation she co-founded with her former husband and will instead disburse the funds among other philanthropies, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The 57-year-old Texas-raised computer scientist made the change in late 2021 following her divorce last year from Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) co-founder Bill Gates, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter.
The couple had pledged in 2010 to give the bulk of their fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which was founded in 2000 and spent $55 billion in its first two decades, with a focus on combating poverty, inequity and disease.
A foundation spokesperson declined to comment beyond what French Gates outlined in her latest Giving Pledge letter, which she posted separately from Bill Gates.
“I recognize the absurdity of so much wealth being concentrated in the hands of one person, and I believe the only responsible thing to do with a fortune this size is give it away – as thoughtfully and impactfully as possible,” she wrote.
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Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Will Dunham and Tomasz Janowski
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
