Star investor Warren Buffett has committed to donating a large portion of his fortune to charity. A look at the Oracle of Omaha’s current donation total shows that he puts his money where his mouth is.
• Buffett wants to donate almost his entire fortune
• Why his children should hardly inherit anything
• Overview of billions in gifts: Greatest philanthropist of all time
“Society has a use for my money. I have none,” said star investor Warren Buffett, former head of the investment holding Berkshire Hathaway and multiple billionaire, in a statement in 2021. “Over many decades, I have amassed an almost incomprehensible sum simply by doing what I love to do. I made no sacrifice, nor did my family. Compound interest, a long-term focus, wonderful employees and our incredible country simply worked their magic.” This is how Buffett explained his motivation for making a large part of his fortune available to charitable causes.
He fulfilled this promise by founding the Giving Pledge, a philanthropic campaign he co-founded with his friend and Microsoft founder Bill Gates Buffett has been impressively proving this for several years now. The investment guru has promised that a total of 99 percent of his assets, which primarily consist of Berkshire Hathaway shares, will go to charitable foundations. In recent years, Buffett has donated a significant portion of his Berkshire shares.
Hardly anything should go to his children
Buffett follows a clear philosophy that places the value of one’s own work above the privilege of an inheritance. Instead of providing his children with a billion-dollar investment portfolio, he plans to channel most of his wealth to philanthropic causes. His decision is based on his long-term observation of super-rich dynasties and the firm belief that too much inherited money can paralyze one’s own initiative. He therefore advocates the maxim: “Give the children enough so that they can do everything, but not enough that they don’t have to do anything”.
Buffett sees the accumulation of wealth over generations as a model whose appeal is fortunately fading in modern society. For him, refraining from passing on money within the family is not a sacrifice, but a logical consequence of his success. He emphasizes that his prosperity is the result of fortunate circumstances and social structures, which is why he now wants to return the capital to where it is of use. He aptly explains: “Society has a use for my money; I don’t.”
Billion donation in June 2024
The philanthropist is sticking with this approach in 2024 and donated additional Berkshire Hathaway shares worth a total of $5.3 billion as part of his annual summer fundraising campaign. For the 19th summer in a row, shares in the investment holding company went to charitable foundations.
The biggest beneficiary of the donation was once again the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which Buffett has given every year since 2006. The investor bequeathed shares worth over four billion US dollars to the charity that Bill Gates founded together with his ex-wife. Another block of shares worth $400 million went to his late wife’s foundation, the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation. Charities of Buffett’s children, the Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and the NoVo Foundation, were awarded shares worth $285 million each.
Withdrawal from operational business at Berkshire and record donation in 2025
In June 2025, Warren Buffett set a new milestone in his unprecedented philanthropic career: With a record donation of around $6 billion in the form of Berkshire Hathaway shares, he marked the largest annual donation since the beginning of his two-decade-long fundraising project.
The lion’s share of this package, around 9.43 million shares, went to the Gates Foundation. The investor distributed the remaining part between the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation and the foundations of his three children – the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, the Sherwood Foundation and the NoVo Foundation.
In a letter to shareholders from November 2025, the investment legend finally announced his gradual withdrawal from the operational business of Berkshire Hathaway. In the future, he will neither write the traditional annual letters nor appear as a speaker at general meetings. He handed over operational management and responsibility for the enormous cash assets to his successor Greg Abel. Buffett emphasized that although good investment ideas are rare due to the size of the market, he continues to provide advice on specific occasions: “Occasionally I have a useful idea (…) good ideas are rare – but not zero.”
Parallel to his retirement, Buffett is also accelerating the distribution of his private assets during his lifetime in 2025. He plans to massively increase the pace of donations to his four family foundations. Specifically, 1.5 million Class B shares will go to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation. His three children will each receive 400,000 shares for their respective foundations – the Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and the NoVo Foundation. Buffett justifies this step with complete trust in the next generation: “All three children today have the maturity, the intellect, the energy and the instincts to distribute a large fortune.”
Greatest philanthropist of all time
Warren Buffett’s retirement may mark the end of an era, but the donations from his life’s work to date, which now total well over $60 billion, cement his reputation as the greatest philanthropist of all time.
Buffett himself calls his philanthropy “the easiest thing in the world” because “giving is painless and can lead to a better life for you and your children.” He once explained to CNBC in an interview that he had accumulated an almost unbelievable amount of money over many decades simply by doing what he liked to do. “Neither I nor my family sacrificed. Compound interest, long term interest, wonderful employees and our incredible country simply worked their magic. Society has a use for my money; I don’t.”
Thomas Zoller, Evelyn Schmal, editorial team finanzen.net
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