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Gates Foundation will accelerate spending, wind down by 2045

Bill Gates, co-chairman of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, during a Bloomberg Television interview in London on June 26. (Hollie Adams/Bloomberg)
By Jessica Nix and Ashleigh Furlong bloomberg

The Gates Foundation will double its spending and sunset operations in 2045, Chair Bill Gates said in a statement.

The foundation is going to spend more than $200 billion over the next 20 years, he said.

“I have decided to give my money back to society much faster than I had originally planned,” Gates wrote.

“I will give away virtually all my wealth through the Gates Foundation over the next 20 years to the cause of saving and improving lives around the world. And on December 31, 2045, the foundation will close its doors permanently.”

The quick acceleration follows a change to the Gates Foundation’s charter that said the organization would close 20 years after Gates’ death. The Gates Foundation has given away more than $100 billion during its first 25 years.

The announcement comes as nations are backsliding from funding global health. The Trump administration abruptly withdrew from funding for key initiatives like the World Health Organization, USAID and Pepfar in January. The U.S. was the largest donor to the WHO, providing support for programs including those tackling HIV, polio and health emergencies. Without U.S. funding organizations like the WHO are looking to make sweeping cuts to programs and staff.

Other countries, including the U.K. and France, have also cut their aid budgets, as they ramp up defense spending amid ongoing threats like the war in Ukraine. During the COVID pandemic, Gates became the subject of multiple right-wing conspiracies that claimed he used the virus to take control of the global health system.

In 2021, Warren Buffett resigned as a trustee at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as the charity grappled with upheaval created by the divorce of its namesake founders. In 2022, Melinda French Gates announced that she would increasingly give away her fortune through philanthropies other than Gates Foundation.

Gates, confounder of tech giant Microsoft Corp., is listed as the fifth-richest person in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.