Melinda French Gates to quit Gates Foundation, will exit with $19 billion for own charity work

Melinda French Gates is leaving the charitable foundation she co-founded with former spouse Bill Gates more than 20 years ago and will get $US12.5 billion ($18.9 billion) for her own work to uplift women and families, she said on Tuesday.

The billionaire benefactors parted ways in 2021 after 27 years of marriage but had pledged to continue their philanthropic work together. Their final divorce order filed in a Seattle court had no details on an agreement reached between the two on how to divide their marital assets.

Melinda Gates leaving the Elysee Palace in June 2023. Gates has announced she will step down as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.Credit: AP

“Under the terms of my agreement with Bill, in leaving the foundation, I will have an additional $12.5 billion to commit to my work on behalf of women and families,” Melinda Gates said on social media platform X, without disclosing more details about her plans.

With her departure as co-chair, the foundation will change its name to Gates Foundation and Bill Gates will be its sole chairperson, said CEO Mark Suzman.

“After a difficult few years watching women’s rights rolled back in the US and around the world, she wants to use this next chapter to focus specifically on altering that trajectory,” Suzman said.

The foundation is one of the most powerful and influential forces in global public health, having spent more than $US75 billion since its inception to bring a business approach to combating poverty and disease.

The foundation has supported major international institutions such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the World Health Organisation and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. It also funds research into a wide range of topics such as child malnutrition and maternal health, as well as eradicating polio and treating and preventing malaria. The foundation has also donated billions to help small farmers adapt to climate change.

In the US, it funded education policy and research that had sweeping, if mixed, effects, and now, has pledged to increase its support around anti-poverty initiatives.

“The announcement is a surprise for many of us, but I don’t think it’s spur of the moment,” said Latanya Mapp, president and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

French Gates had already helped cement a gender equity lens within the Gates Foundation’s programs to ensure it continues on past her departure, Mapp said. The first president of the foundation’s gender equity division was hired in 2020.

From 1994 through 2018, Bill and Melinda gifted about $US59.5 billion to the Seattle-based foundation, its website said.

Her last day at the foundation will be June 7.

“I am sorry to see Melinda leave, but I am sure she will have a huge impact in her future philanthropic work,” Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said in a post on X.

The Seattle-based foundation will be renamed the Gates Foundation.Credit: Bloomberg

Melinda Gates, who has a net worth of $US11.3 billion according to Forbes, manages some of her investments and charitable work through her Pivotal Ventures. The investment company, founded in 2015, focuses on women and families.

The fate of the foundation’s leadership was thrown into question after the couple announced they were divorcing in May 2021. That July, they said they were setting a two-year deadline to decide whether they could work together, and that if they couldn’t, French Gates would receive money from Gates for her philanthropic work that’s separate from the foundation’s endowment.

In September 2022, French Gates said she was “completely committed” to the foundation and working with her ex-husband.

French Gates has her own charity called Pivotal Ventures, which she started in 2015. By the time the couple divorced, Pivotal had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in more than 150 organisations. It uses grants as well as venture capital to focus on empowering women, including getting more females into technology jobs and elected to public office, and advocating paid family leave.

Bill Gates, 68, the former chief executive officer and co-founder of Microsoft, is the world’s fifth-richest person with a fortune of $US152.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, while French Gates is worth $US13.3 billion.

French Gates, through Pivotal, has also worked with MacKenzie Scott, who became one of the biggest philanthropists in history following her 2019 divorce from Amazon.com co-founder Jeff Bezos.

Reuters, Bloomberg, AP

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