> Earlier this month Bill Gates announced that the Gates Foundation will close its doors in 2045, earlier than expected. Since it was established at the turn of the millennium the foundation has become the world’s largest, spending $100bn to fight disease and poverty. The plan is to dish out another $200bn in the next 20 years. That is virtually all of Mr Gates’s fortune. It is the latest example of a trend towards speedy giving.
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> The grandfathers of modern philanthropy—Gilded Age industrialists like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller—set up foundations that still operate. Some of today’s wealthy are experimenting with models that get money out of the door fast. MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, has dished out more than $19bn in just a few years. In the past ten years the share of American family foundations spending down their funds has risen to 13% from 9%. Why the rush?
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> Some tycoons seem genuinely uncomfortable with their wealth. That was true of Chuck Feeney, a duty-free billionaire, who quietly gave away $8bn and closed his foundation before he died a couple of years ago. Others want to give while they’re alive in order to control how money is spent. The Ford Foundation’s decades-long feud with the founder’s family is a warning to all. It helps that the rich are minting money younger. Mr Gates, the founder of Microsoft, became a billionaire aged 31, making him the youngest one in the world at the time. Some of today’s tech bros earned their first billion in their 20s. They have time for “giving while living”.
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> Add to that a newly urgent need for funding. The Gates Foundation is trying to plug some of the gap left by government donors. America, which has historically spent more on aid than other rich countries, has gutted its aid agency. Others are slashing budgets, too. Official development assistance from the world’s largest donors dropped for the first time in six years in 2024, according to estimates from the OECD, a club of rich countries. Mr Gates reckons there is no reason for private donors to hold back. “The needs are very urgent,” he says, “and there will be a lot of rich people 20 years from now.”
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> There is also political pressure to act fast. Donald Trump’s team is critical of private giving. First buddy Elon Musk has referred to philanthropy as “bullshit”. (The world’s richest man does have a foundation, but it has not donated the legally required 5% of assets annually to charitable causes for each of the past three years.) Donors are braced for executive orders that block grants to projects abroad or rule that green causes don’t count as charity. Rob Reich of Stanford University says the Trump administration’s hostility has put pressure on donors to make big gifts now, both to beat any new rules and to advertise the benefits of philanthropy.
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> Mark Suzman, head of the Gates Foundation, says $200bn is a “conservative” estimate of what it will spend in the next 20 years. Not everyone is excited about donors dishing out so much so quickly. It can be hard to give effectively at full speed. In his note announcing the closure of his foundation, Mr Gates quoted Carnegie’s “The Gospel of Wealth”: “the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.” It’s hard to think of a statement that is more joyfully counter-cultural.
Maximilianne on
I can forgive Elon for thinking philanthropy is bullshit, I cannot forgive him cavorting with Trump and specifically focusing on gutting USAid
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> Earlier this month Bill Gates announced that the Gates Foundation will close its doors in 2045, earlier than expected. Since it was established at the turn of the millennium the foundation has become the world’s largest, spending $100bn to fight disease and poverty. The plan is to dish out another $200bn in the next 20 years. That is virtually all of Mr Gates’s fortune. It is the latest example of a trend towards speedy giving.
>
> The grandfathers of modern philanthropy—Gilded Age industrialists like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller—set up foundations that still operate. Some of today’s wealthy are experimenting with models that get money out of the door fast. MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, has dished out more than $19bn in just a few years. In the past ten years the share of American family foundations spending down their funds has risen to 13% from 9%. Why the rush?
>
> Some tycoons seem genuinely uncomfortable with their wealth. That was true of Chuck Feeney, a duty-free billionaire, who quietly gave away $8bn and closed his foundation before he died a couple of years ago. Others want to give while they’re alive in order to control how money is spent. The Ford Foundation’s decades-long feud with the founder’s family is a warning to all. It helps that the rich are minting money younger. Mr Gates, the founder of Microsoft, became a billionaire aged 31, making him the youngest one in the world at the time. Some of today’s tech bros earned their first billion in their 20s. They have time for “giving while living”.
>
> Add to that a newly urgent need for funding. The Gates Foundation is trying to plug some of the gap left by government donors. America, which has historically spent more on aid than other rich countries, has gutted its aid agency. Others are slashing budgets, too. Official development assistance from the world’s largest donors dropped for the first time in six years in 2024, according to estimates from the OECD, a club of rich countries. Mr Gates reckons there is no reason for private donors to hold back. “The needs are very urgent,” he says, “and there will be a lot of rich people 20 years from now.”
>
> There is also political pressure to act fast. Donald Trump’s team is critical of private giving. First buddy Elon Musk has referred to philanthropy as “bullshit”. (The world’s richest man does have a foundation, but it has not donated the legally required 5% of assets annually to charitable causes for each of the past three years.) Donors are braced for executive orders that block grants to projects abroad or rule that green causes don’t count as charity. Rob Reich of Stanford University says the Trump administration’s hostility has put pressure on donors to make big gifts now, both to beat any new rules and to advertise the benefits of philanthropy.
>
> Mark Suzman, head of the Gates Foundation, says $200bn is a “conservative” estimate of what it will spend in the next 20 years. Not everyone is excited about donors dishing out so much so quickly. It can be hard to give effectively at full speed. In his note announcing the closure of his foundation, Mr Gates quoted Carnegie’s “The Gospel of Wealth”: “the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.” It’s hard to think of a statement that is more joyfully counter-cultural.
I can forgive Elon for thinking philanthropy is bullshit, I cannot forgive him cavorting with Trump and specifically focusing on gutting USAid