Mackenzie Scott’s 2022 donations were in the billions — but she wasn’t the only billionaire to give away huge fortunes
If the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic produced a record number of new billionaires, then 2022 was the year of huge philanthropic giving from billionaires.
Throughout the year there has been a steady stream of announcements from billionaires promising to give away the inordinate piles of money they have amassed to groups (often their own foundations) set up to tackle the grand challenges ahead the world faces, from tackling climate change to eradicating poverty.
“If you give a billion in a year, you’re in pretty rare company,” said Elizabeth Dale, associate professor of nonprofit leadership at Seattle University wealthadding, “Anytime someone announces they will give more than $1 billion in a year, we know that in a typical year they will be one of the biggest donors.”
Here are the biggest donations made by the world’s richest this year. This list is not exhaustive and includes only those who have donated over $1 billion. Notably absent are Bernard Arnault and Elon Musk, who are the world’s richest people at the time of publication.
Warren Buffett
At his annual summer party in June, Warren Buffett announced that he had made another $4 billion donation in shares in his conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway — the 17thth Time when Buffett made that annual gift. At the time of the announcement, the donation brought Buffett’s total lifetime charitable commitments to $48 billion.
Buffett committed to donating 99% of all his wealth to philanthropic foundations in 2006, and has donated to the same five foundations each year: the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, the Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, the NoVo Foundation, and the Bill- and Melinda Gates Foundation.
In addition to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation — which Buffett once chaired and to which he usually donates the largest sum — the other four charities are run by his three children.
But his philanthropic giving didn’t end there for the year. In November, Buffett made another surprise donation of $750 million in Berkshire Hathaway stock on Thanksgiving eve — the first time the 92-year-old had made a second major gift in the same year.
But unlike his usual annual donation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was noticeably absent from the list of recipients. Buffett said the timing and recipients of the second donation were no coincidence and that it was his way of thanking his children for their community service.
“I’m personally proud of how my kids have turned out,” Buffett told CNBC’s Becky Quick. “I feel good because they know I’m comfortable with them. That’s the ultimate affirmation of my kids, and it’s the ultimate statement that my kids don’t want to be dynastically rich.”
Bill and Melinda Gates
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates joined Buffett this year in plans to give away his entire fortune.
“As I look forward, I plan to give virtually my entire fortune to the foundation,” Gates tweeted in July when he announced he would be donating an additional $20 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation .
“I am committed to giving back my resources to society in ways that have the greatest impact on reducing suffering and improving lives. And I hope that others in positions of great wealth and privilege will also emerge at this moment,” Gates tweeted.
Gates and his ex-wife Melinda French Gates have pledged more than $50 billion to the foundation since 1994. If Bill achieved his lofty goal of giving away his entire fortune, it would mean another $116 billion for his charity, which fights disease and poverty around the world.
In a blog post published in July, Gates wrote that the Gates Foundation, which he founded with his wife in 2000, plans to increase its annual spending by 50% — from its current $6 billion to $9 billion by 2026 .
“Now it shows that the need in all areas in which we operate is greater than ever. The great crises of our time require all of us to do more,” Gates wrote, adding that the tremendous global setbacks, ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, are not stopping people should try to make the world a better place. “Focusing on being part of the solution is better than giving up in desperation,” he wrote.
But no commodity deed goes unpunished. Gates and his foundation have become a prominent target for coronavirus conspiracy theories, including false claims linking him to the origins of the coronavirus or suggesting he planned to use the COVID vaccines to implant surveillance microchips in billions of people . “You almost have to laugh because it’s so crazy,” Gates said in a BBC interview in May.
jeff bezos
Another person who joined the list of the world’s richest people who gave away their entire fortune was Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Bezos announced in November that he plans to give away the majority of his $122 billion fortune — following years of criticism for his relative lack of philanthropy compared to his billionaire peers. Bezos is notably absent from the list of signatories to the Giving Pledge, a campaign founded by Buffett and Gates that encourages the world’s richest to donate half of their net worth to charity.
The fourth richest person in the world made his pledge after giving country singer Dolly Parton $100 million to donate to charities of her choice as part of Bezos’ annual Courage and Civility Award.
Announcing with his girlfriend Lauren Sanchez, Bezos said, “The hard part is figuring out how to do it in a leveraged way — it’s not easy.
“Building Amazon was not easy. It took a lot of hard work and a bunch of very smart teammates. Philanthropy is very similar. It’s really hard and there are a number of ways you can do even ineffective things.
Bezos didn’t specify how he plans to split his fortune, nor did he give details on which causes he’s likely to focus on the most.
“There’s still a lot we don’t know,” said Benjamin Soskis, senior research associate at the Urban Institute’s Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy CNBC‘s Make It program, adding, “If he keeps his promise, he will almost certainly be one of the greatest philanthropists of the first half of the 21st century.”St Century.”
But part of the move to provide the huge sum could be due in part to growing public pressure to do so after his ex-wife MacKenzie Scott’s very public and prolific philanthropic efforts following her divorce from the 58-year-old billionaire.
MacKenzie Scott
Since Scott took control of her post-divorce estate, she’s given away more than $12 billion of her net worth of now $27 billion in just two years.
In her first Medium blog post that she published, which would become a semi-annual series of essays announcing her donations, Scott wrote, “Last year I pledged to return the majority of my fortune to the society that helped make it happen to do it wisely, to start soon and keep at it until the vault is empty.”
When the story of her huge donations first broke, Scott announced in late March that she had given away an additional $3.9 billion since June 2021nd-Richest person listed their most recent recipients, who were largely underrepresented people living in the regions they support and with personal knowledge of the problems they hope to address.
After the shock of her huge donation wore off, she did it again, announcing in a November Medium post that she’d donated an additional $2 billion to more than 300 organizations over the past seven months.
In an explosive Bloomberg Article exposing the use of donation funds or charitable investment accounts used by the ultra-rich to park their money to take advantage of the tax benefits of giving to charity without actually having to give the money away to those in need was Scott identified as one of the few philanthropists to have used the fund correctly.
“Part of the reason MacKenzie Scott really made headlines is because of the way she did it,” says Dale, noting that what sets Scott apart from her peers is because she was able to impress her Getting money quickly to the people who need it done. “When she made her first announcement like ‘I gave $1.6 billion,’ that was already out. They had a list of organizations that received that money,” says Dale.
Gautam Adani
The third richest man in the world, Gautam Adani, promised in June, on the occasion of his 60thth th birthday and honor the centenary of his father Shantilal Adani’s birth.
India’s richest people have been criticized in the past for not giving more to philanthropy. Global consultancy Bain and Co.’s India Philanthropy Report 2021 found that the country’s ultra-rich, with net worth in excess of Rs 500 billion, had donated an average of 0.5% of their wealth.
The donation immediately propelled Adani into the ranks of Western philanthropists who have given away significant chunks of their wealth.
Funds managed by the Adani Foundation go to health, education and skills development, with a particular focus on rural India.
“Our experience in planning and executing large projects and the lessons learned from the work of the Adani Foundation will help us uniquely accelerate these programs,” Adani said in a statement in December.
