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Melinda French Gates is moving most of her wealth away from the Gates Foundation, report says

She plans to spread the money among different philanthropies, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Mary King Associate Editor
Mary is an associate editor covering technology, culture and everything in between. She recently graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she served as an editor at The Daily Tar Heel and reported for newspapers across the state. You can usually find her decked out in UNC merch and streaming lo-fi hip-hop while she writes.
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Melinda French Gates co-founded the Giving Pledge in 2010 alongside Warren Buffett and her then-husband Bill Gates.

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Melinda French Gates, the former wife of billionaire and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, now plans to donate most of her wealth to philanthropic endeavors apart from the Gates Foundation, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

Melinda French Gates and Bill Gates pledged in 2010 to give the majority of their money to their foundation, whose endowment has soared over $50 billion. The couple, alongside Warren Buffett, founded the Giving Pledge that year to push the ultra-wealthy to give over half of their wealth to charity. 

After announcing their divorce in May 2021, they published separate Giving Pledge letters for the first time in November. In hers, French Gates maintained her initial commitment to giving away over half of her wealth but didn't specify that the Gates Foundation would be the recipient. The Wall Street Journal reported that she would instead spread it among different philanthropies, citing "people familiar with the matter."

The Gates Foundation declined to comment.