Warren Buffett, the 93-year-old investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, made his largest annual donation on June 28, 2024, gifting $5.3 billion worth of Berkshire Hathaway shares to five charities. 8,674 of Buffett's Class A shares were exchanged into almost 13 million Class B shares in exchange for the contribution. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was given 9.93 million shares. The remaining shares were given to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation and three organizations run by his children, Howard, Susan, and Peter Buffett. Buffett pledged in 2006 to donate the money he amassed at Berkshire, which he started managing in 1965, to these charities on a yearly basis.
Following this donation, Buffett holds 207,963 Berkshire A shares and 2,586 B shares, valued at approximately $130 billion. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, he confirmed that his immense wealth will be directed to a new charitable trust overseen by his children after his death, with no further donations to the Gates Foundation. Buffett, who resigned as a trustee of the Gates Foundation in June 2021, emphasized the importance of helping those less fortunate and assured transparency regarding the disposition of his assets through a publicly accessible will.
