He donated nearly $8 billion to Melinda Gates’ private foundation as part of their divorce settlement, one of the largest charitable contributions on public record, according to the first DealBook report.
According to the New York Times, that’s according to a new tax return reviewed by The Times’ Theodore Schleifer, which reveals the first financial terms of the couple’s 2021 split.
The first terms of the charitable settlement
According to the document, Gates made the $7.88 billion donation in 2024 to a relatively new foundation founded by Francis Gates, the Pivotal Philanthropies Foundation.
When Francis Gates announced in May 2024 that he would step down as co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he said that Gates would donate $12.5 billion to his own philanthropic initiatives to improve people’s lives. She said in a statement that “under the terms of my agreement with Bill,” she would “have an additional $12.5 billion to dedicate to her work for women and families.”
Divorce Settlement: Bill Gates donates $8bn to ex‑wife’s charity foundation
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However, the exact terms for the distribution of the assets were not made public, so the newly released tax return is the first look at them.
What can be revealed next
More money may be coming. Tax returns for 2025, which are expected to be released later this year, could reveal the rest of the money that Gates has said will go to his philanthropy — about $4.6 billion. It is also possible that some of that money was given not to charity, but to an entity such as Francis Gates’ limited liability company, Pivotal Ventures, which does not file a tax return.
A spokesman for Gates did not respond to requests for comment. Pivotal declined to elaborate on the dispute, but confirmed that the $12.5 billion deal has been met. The donation of nearly $7.9 billion, according to a Pivotal spokesman, was part of that deal.
The Pivotal Philanthropies Foundation is today one of America’s largest private foundations. It was founded in late 2022, a year after the divorce, and at the end of 2023 had $604 million. A year later, he had assets worth $7.4 billion, having made charitable donations worth less than $500 million that year.
