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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge
Bill Gates and Warren Buffet pledged to give half of their net worth away during their life or death to charity. They're practicing what they preach.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably because 1) he donates shares (instead of cash) due to tax reasons, and 2) the receiving party needs to sell the MSFT shares to end up with cash. If he donated his entire stake at once, and everyone started selling, that wouldn't be good for the share price.
the stock does not have to be sold. it is used as collateral. The bank will accept $1 billion of MSFT stock in exchange for probably $1 billion cash
I'm surprised that people are asking how / why he is giving money away and no one mentioned his Giving Pledge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge Bill Gates and Warren Buffet pledged to give half of their net worth away during their life or death to charity. They're practicing what they preach.
Buffett's premise on not giving much of his wealth to his children, goes back perhaps 40 or 50 years now based on what he has said. According to Gates, an article that Buffett wrote for a business magazine, published ~25 some years ago now, informed and altered Bill's thinking on the detriment of giving such immense wealth to the next generation.
The Giving Pledge is primarily for other billionaires to pledge to give away at least 50%. The 50% level made it an easier bar to jump over, as of course not all of the billionaires want to match the 99% marker Gates & Buffett have set.
Hypothesis: From an analytical perspective, he must believe that the upside of Microsoft is limited enough, at least over the time horizon he's concerned about, to start cashing in Microsoft stock. He's a smart guy. He'd be trying to convert his holdings at the top of a value curve, right?
I could be wrong (I'm certainly no investor), but rather than trying to time a large sell at the peak, I think a smart investor would accpet that prediciting stock movement that accurately is hard and actually just sell slowly over time at a fixed rate to dollar cost average their exit.
Maybe we can give Gates the benefit of the doubt but for everyone else, this is just a tax scheme.
I'm surprised that people are asking how / why he is giving money away and no one mentioned his Giving Pledge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge Bill Gates and Warren Buffet pledged to give half of their net worth away during their life or death to charity. They're practicing what they preach.
"Gates created the Giving Pledge in 2010 with billionaire investor Warren Buffett, and the pair have been joined by 168 others who’ve promised to give the majority of their wealth to charity."
I'm surprised that people are asking how / why he is giving money away and no one mentioned his Giving Pledge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge Bill Gates and Warren Buffet pledged to give half of their net worth away during their life or death to charity. They're practicing what they preach.
The article covers it: "Gates created the Giving Pledge in 2010 with billionaire investor Warren Buffett, and the pair have been joined by 168 others who’ve promised to give the majority of their wealth to charity."
I'm surprised that people are asking how / why he is giving money away and no one mentioned his Giving Pledge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge Bill Gates and Warren Buffet pledged to give half of their net worth away during their life or death to charity. They're practicing what they preach.
Read: has donated shares of Microsoft to his own foundation. Maybe we can give Gates the benefit of the doubt but for everyone else, this is just a tax scheme.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
the stock does not have to be sold. it is used as collateral. The bank will accept $1 billion of MSFT stock in exchange for probably $1 billion cash
That's called a sale. Unless for some reason, Gates took a loan instead, which would be kind of a pointless way to give part of his net worth to the bank in the form of interest.