Bill Gates

Bill Gates Gives Up "World's Richest Man" Status for Philanthropy

Filed under: Charity, Big Givers, Wealth

On Wednesday, Forbes magazine will publish its annual list of the richest billionaires in the world. It's almost certain to include Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Carlos Slim in the top three, but while Gates has topped the list nearly every year since 1995 (losing out only once to Buffett by a margin of half a billion), this year we're not expecting to see the Microsoft co-founder in the top spot.

The reason for Gates' displacement? His overwhelming philanthropic activity. Although his personal fortune today is estimated around $49 billion, he and his wife Melinda have funneled some $28 billion into their non-profit foundation. As a result, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim – who contributes far less than Gates or Buffett to charity - is expected to top the list.

[Source: Reuters]

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Tags: bill gates, billionaire, billionaires, carlos slim, philanthropy, warren buffett, worlds richest man

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Others Join Giving Pledge

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Charity, Big Givers

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg is the one of the latest billionaires to sign on to the Giving Pledge campaign started by Bill Gates and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett. The Giving Pledge calls for billionaires to pledge at least half their net worth to charity, in their lifetimes or at death.

The list of those signed on to the Giving Pledge now has 57 families. The recent batch of billionaires include AOL co-founder Steve Case, investor Carl Icahn and Michael Milken who join Larry Ellison, George Lucas and Michael Bloomberg in the ultimate big givers roll call.

"People wait until late in their career to give back. But why wait when there is so much to be done?" said Mark Zuckerberg in a press release. "With a generation of younger folks who have thrived on the success of their companies, there is a big opportunity for many of us to give back earlier in our lifetime and see the impact of our philanthropic efforts."

A full list of those taking the pledge and personal letters by many of these pledgers outlining their commitment to give is available online at www.givingpledge.org. Carl Icahn said that "until Bill, Melinda and Warren started this project, I never considered going public with my intentions. However, I certainly see the value of a project that encourages wealthy individuals to step forward and commit to use their wealth for the common good. I hope that by adding my voice with those who are supporting this project, we will all encourage others to participate."

Tags: bill and melinda gat..., bill and melinda gates foundation, bill gates, dustin moskovitz, facebook, giving pledge, mark zuckerberg, melinda gates, philanthropy, warren buffett

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Armani Beats Gates and Abramovich to Buy $190 Million Greek Island

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Estates, Wealth

Legendary Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani has reportedly become the proud owner of one of the world's most beautiful and expensive private islands – Skorpios (above). In closing the deal, said to be worth about $190 million according to reports in the European press, the designer faced stiff competition from rival bidders including Bill Gates, Roman Abramovich and Madonna. Located in the Ionian Sea off the western coast of Greece, the island formerly belonged to famed Greek shipping billionaire Aristotle Onassis and was the site of his wedding to Jackie Kennedy in 1968. It was sold to Armani by his granddaughter and heiress, Athina Onassis Roussel. There is a lavish villa on the island known as the Pink House which Onassis built for Jackie, along with tennis courts and plush gardens, though most of the island remains undeveloped and pristinely beautiful.

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Tags: Aristotle Onassis, Athina Onassis Roussel, Bill Gates, billionaires, designer, fashion designer, Giorgio Armani, Greece, heiress, island, Jackie Kennedy, Jackie O, jaqueline kennedy, Madonna, private island, Roman Abramovich, wealth

Indian Billionaire to Be World's Richest Man by 2014

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wealth

Forget Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Carlos Slim: in four years' time the world's richest man will be Indian commodity king Mukesh Ambani (above), Forbes predicts in a new special report on the coming decade in finance and economics. The magazine estimates that Ambani's fortune will have swelled to $62 billion by 2014, outpacing the rest of the contenders, including current world's richest man Carlos Slim who's currently worth $53.5 billion. Mexico's Slim, who's made some risky investments including a large stake in the struggling New York Times, will be "hit hard by Mexican political and financial chaos," Forbes predicts. Ambani, 53, is currently the fourth richest man in the world with a fortune of $29 billion. He is the owner of Antilia, a 27-floor building in Mumbai which includes his family's private residence of 400,000 square feet, making it the world's first billion-dollar home and the largest private home in the world.

Tags: Bill Gates, billionaire, Carlos Slim, Forbes, Mukesh Ambani, Warren Buffet, wealth, worlds richest man

Chinese Billionaire Joins Gates/Buffett Giving Pledge

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Big Givers

A Chinese philanthropist has joined the Giving Pledge campaign started by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Chen Guangbiao, chairman of Jiangsu Huangpu Renewable Resources Utilization, is a well-known Chinese philanthropist and wealthy businessman, he recently gave one million yuan (around $150,000) to the Pakistani flood victims. He is the first in China to respond to the campaign. Gates and Buffett plan to make their pitch to Chinese billionaires in person in Beijing, China at a special dinner on September 29. Around 50 super wealthy Chinese businesspeople have been invited to the banquet but some have opted not to attend.

News reports say that Chen Guangbiao posted an open letter to Gates and Buffett on his company website. The letter pledges that he will donate his entire fortune of more than five billion yuan ($735 million) to charity when he dies. Chen's letter says that it will be a "glory" to return his entire fortune to society and that it is a "shame" to die hoarding wealth.

He's no stranger to showy philanthropy. Earlier this year he built a "money wall" at the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China's (ICBC) Jiangsu Branch to collect donations for poor families. He was on the top of the 2010 China Charity List released by the China Association of Social Workers. It is said that he has already donated a total of 1.34 billion yuan.

Tags: bill gates, billionaires, chen guangbiao, giving pledge, philanthropy, warren buffett

The Magic of Montreux and the Swiss Riviera

by Annie Scott (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels

The Swiss Riviera is undeniably one of the most beautiful parts of the world. Whether you stay in the five-star Beau-Rivage Palace or shack up for a more reasonable price at a UNESCO World Heritage Site winery (like this one), the landscape alone will soothe your soul and inspire your mind. One particular gem along the glistening string of Lake Geneva towns is Montreux.

You may have heard of Montreux in relation Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms (it served as a safe-haven for Catherine Barkley and Lt. Frederic Henry) or the Montreux Jazz Festival, an annual event curated by Claude Nobs which has featured nearly every great artist of the last 44 years (that's how long it's been running), from Aretha Franklin to Prince, from Miles Davis to the Black Eyed Peas. Though no longer focused specifically on jazz, but more on popular music of the times, the festival has become one of the most prestigious in Europe -- this year, they are operating with a 22 million Swiss Franc budget (about $20,992,356) -- and you can be sure the performers don't mind spending time on Lake Geneva (above).

Tags: beauty, Bill Gates, caux, lausanne, lavaux, montreux, swiss riviera, switzerland

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Paul Allen Joins BIll Gates By Giving Away His Fortune

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Charity, Big Givers

Paul Allen and Bill Gates founded Microsoft and now Allen is taking a page out of Gates's book, announcing that he will give more than half of his estimated $13.5 billion fortune to philanthropy. Just last month we learned about a plan that Gates, his wife, Melinda and Warren Buffett had cooked up to get the country's billionaires to earmark half their fortunes to charitable causes. Other billionaires who have already committed to at least a 50 percent pledge include Eli and Edy Broad, John and Ann Doerr, H.F. "Gerry" and Marguerite Lenfest and John and Tashia Morgridge.

Allen already has an existing foundation, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. His projects have included the nonprofit scientific research done at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, the Allen institute and the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum. As the NY Times reports Allen has made Chronicle of Philanthropy's annual list of the nation's 50 largest donors, eight times. Last year, he ranked No. 11 for giving away $85 million.

Tags: bill gates, microsoft, paul allen, philanthropists, philanthropy, warren buffett

Buffett And Gates Encourage Billionaires To Donate At Least Half of Their Fortunes

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Big Givers

Last year I wrote about the secret meeting of some of the world's biggest philanthropists. Now Fortune has revealed sone of what happened during that meeting. Fortune's Carol Loomis reports that Bill Gates, Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett are making a plea to the nation's richest citizens. They are asking the nation's billionaires to pledge at least half their net worth to charity, in their lifetimes or at death. Gates tells Fortune that he thinks 50 percent should be the "low bar" and that people should actally give more. Buffet also reaffirmed his own philanthropy pedge saying that he and his family decided to "keep all we can conceivably need and distribute the rest to society, for its needs" giving away more than 99 percent of his wealth.

And they aren't alone. Fortune says that other billionaires who have already committed to at least a 50 percent pledge include Eli and Edy Broad, John and Ann Doerr, H.F. "Gerry" and Marguerite Lenfest and John and Tashia Morgridge. The Fortune article goes on to say that after the first billionaires' dinner there were several more dinners set up by the Gateses. Part of the goal was just to talk about giving and why some people don't give as much as they could. In the article Melinda Gates explains that the first part of the pledge campaign is just to help move people forward in the direction of thinking about giving and what good their money can do in the world and to plan ahead. The initiative is a long-term one and given, the potential money at stake, one which has the power to reimagine the social landscape.

Tags: bill gates, melinda gates, philanthropy, warren buffett

Carlos Slim Beats Buffet & Gates for World's Richest Man Title

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wealth

Mexican telecommunications mogul Carlos Slim has beat out Warren Buffet and Bill Gates to capture the title of World's Richest Man, according to Forbes' newly-released rich list. With an astonishing net worth of $53.5 billion, Slim, whose most recent acquisition is a major stake in the struggling New York Times, is the first person from a developing nation ever to be named the world's richest person. The 70-year-old mogul's ever-expanding fortunes - his net worth jumped by $18.5 billion over the past year - is attributable to a spike in value for his his enviable cell phone holdings.

Gates (No. 2) and Buffet (No. 3) have not suffered any reversal of fortune that knocked them down on the list; in fact, Gates is up by $13 billion and Buffet by $10 billion for the year. Rather, the magazine notes, their declining position is due to having given so much money to charitable causes. Slim is known for wearing inexpensive suits and rarely using the computers his companies sell, preferring old-style paper notebooks. While he owns an impressive collection of art, including works by French sculptor Auguste Rodin, the AP notes that he works out of a set of somewhat dowdy, 1970s-style offices.

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Tags: bill gates, billionaire, Carlos Slim, Forbes, Mexico, new york times, warren buffet, worlds richest man

Forbes' List of 'Billion Dollar Donors'

by Laura Malesich (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Charity, Wealth

I'm sure a list of the world's wealthiest is a fluctuating compendium these days making a list of donors a nice change of pace from Forbes. Of course most of these 'Billion Dollar Donors' would most likely make the cut for some of the nation's most affluent individuals as well but here their philanthropic tendencies are the focus of attention. These fourteen people, out of 793 billionaires worldwide, have actually donated, not just pledged, over $1 billion total. Here are some of the world's most generous givers:

1 Bill Gates, $28 billion donated.
2 George Soros, $7.2 billion
3 Gordon Moore (shown at right), $6.8 billion
4 Warren Buffett, $6.7 billion
5 Eli Broad, $2 billion
6 James Stowers, $1.9 billion
7 Herbert and Marion Sandler, $1.5 billion
8 Michael Bloomberg, $1.5 billion
9 Li Ka-shing, $1.37 billion
10 Dietmar Hopp, $1.25 billion
11 Michael Dell $1.2 billion
12 Klaus Tschira, $1.1 billion
13 Stephen Schmidheiny $1 billion
14 Ted Turner, $1 billion

Anybody you are surprised didn't make the list?

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Tags: bill gates, BillGates, billion dollar donor, BillionDollarDonor, charity, donate billions, DonateBillions, forbes, gordon moore, GordonMoore, ted turner, TedTurner, warren buffett, WarrenBuffett

Gates Foundation Loses Money, Keeps Giving It Away

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Charity, Big Givers

We've seen plenty of charities suffering in the recession but even the biggest, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation isn't immune. The AP reports that between January 2008 and April 2009 the foundation saw its wealth sink from $39 billion to $27.5 billion. The foundation, which was started in 1994, has given away $20.1 billion in the last decade. It paid $2.8 billion in grants and other charitable expenses last year and estimates that it will spend $3.5 billion in grants and related expenses in 2009.The foundation isn't reducing distributions in 2009 but the growth of the distributions has slowed. The foundation continues to be devoted to global health. It recently made a $10 million grant to the United Nation's World Food Program. Gates Foundation CEO Jeff Raikes, a former Microsoft executive, said the economic crisis has caused Bill Gates to increase his focus on the foundation.

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Tags: bill and melinda gates foundation, bill gates, BillAndMelindaGatesFoundation, BillGates, charity, philanthropy

Bill Gates Buys Buffalo Bill's Ranch for $9 Million

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping

Microsoft founder Bill Gates, the world's richest man, has reportedly purchased Irma Lake Lodge in Wyoming, a 492-acre ranch that once belonged to Western legend "Buffalo Bill" Cody, for $8.9 million. The deal was done via Gates' investment manager, the Cody Enterprise reports. The Shoshone Forest borders the beautiful property (above) on two sides and the terrain varies from open knolls to thick conifer forests, aspen groves and rocky outcroppings. Dotted across the ranch are four lakes and three picturesque ponds.

Named by Buffalo Bill after his youngest daughter, Irma Lake is the largest body of water with approximately 12 acres. The estate includes a 15,000-square-foot contemporary log cabin-style main residence (below) with with expansive open spaces and patios, a five-bedroom guesthouse, stables, Buffalo Bill's original cabin, a caretaker's house, and a dairy cabin. In addition to amazing views, there are several species of fish to be found on the property as well as "some of the finest big game hunting the west has to offer."

Gallery: Irma Lake

Tags: Bill Gates, BillGates, fishing, hunting, lake, ranch, Wyoming

Oprah Winfrey Joins World's Richest Philanthropists For Secret Meeting

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Big Givers, Wealth

How would you like to be a fly on the wall for this event, a secret meeting of some of the world's biggest givers? On May 5, Bill Gates, David Rockefeller Sr., Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffet and other leading philanthropists met in New York to discuss the world's problems. The high-profile confab was organized by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Details of what the group discussed have not been made public but according to IrishCentral.com, each philanthropist was given 15 minutes to talk about their view of the future and how the team, which has donated billions to charitable causes, can help at a time when charity donations are falling. What is particularly compelling about the group assembled, which also reportedly included Eli Broad and Michael Bloomberg, is that most of them have their own foundation and areas of focus when it comes to philanthropy. I can't help but imagine this meeting as some sort of Justice League scenario complete with flapping capes. Sounds more compelling than any summer blockbuster.

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Tags: bill gates, BillGates, oprah winfrey, OprahWinfrey, warren buffett, WarrenBuffett

Number of World's Billionaires in Sharp Decline

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wealth

My colleague Deidre Woollard just reported that the number of millionaire households in the U.S. has shrunk to its lowest level since 2003. To that we can now add that the number of billionaires in the world has also seen a steep decline.

According to Forbes' newly-released annual list of the world's billionaires, there are now only 793 billionaires around the globe, down from 1,125 a year ago. That means 332 people lost their billionaire status.

This year the exclusive group has an average net worth of $3 billion, down 23% in 12 months, making for a loss of some $1.4 trillion. Americans now account for 44% of the money and 45% of the list's slots, up 7 and 3 percentage points from last year, respectively. Some billionaires have fared better than others, though most have lost masses of money.

Bill Gates lost $18 billion but regained his title as the world's richest man with a $40 billion fortune. Warren Buffett, last year's No. 1, saw his fortune decline $25 billion as shares of Berkshire Hathaway fell nearly 50% in 12 months, and is in the No. 2 slot with $37 billion. Mexican telecom titan Carlos Slim Helú maintains his spot in the top three but lost $25 billion, and is now worth $35 billion.

Gallery: 10 Common Myths About Wealth and Luxury

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Tags: Bill Gates, BillGates, Billionaire, billionaires, Carlos Slim, CarlosSlim, Forbes, millionaires, money, Warren Buffett, WarrenBuffett, wealth

The Classicist: Magnates, Mansions & Millionaires

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Estates, Books, The Classicist, Wealth

The excesses of today's tycoons have come under lots of scrutiny lately due to the dire financial situation. Titans of business have always been at the forefront of American mythology however, in both good times and bad, and it's worth putting today's crop of nabobs in their proper historical context. That's what William G. Scheller has done admirably in his new book, Great Estates: The Lifestyles & Homes of American Magnates (Universe, $35). The oversized, lavishly illustrated volume celebrates the history of 40 of America's true barons of business, from the 1700s through this year's Forbes list, and opens the door into their private palaces along the way.

Beginning with the colonial era, when trade was overtaking landholding as a way to get rich, Great Estates follows the "restless careers of our most brilliant and driven merchants, industrialists, and financiers as they mastered a new economic world of textiles, railroads, oil, and steel." With the twentieth century came fresh opportunities: "automobiles, motion pictures, broadcasting, publishing, and retailing on a massive scale, and the vast horizon of high technology." And of course the massive mansions that men of great fortune erected as monuments to their success along the way.

These include Henry Clay Frick's Manhattan mansion, now a magnificent museum; William Randolph Hearst's San Simeon in California, aka Hearst Castle; and one of our personal favorites, railroad magnate Jay Gould's gothic castle on the Hudson River, Lyndhurst (pictured above on the book's cover). Shortly after he purchased the estate as a summer home in 1880, Gould was at the zenith of his power, having gained control of Western Union Telegraph, the New York Elevated Railway and the Union Pacific Railroad with rapacious methods that once caused him to be beaten by a Wall Street mob.

Gallery: Magnates' Great Estates