Warren Buffett gave away $2.8 billion worth of Berkshire Hathaway stock to five charities, the company said Monday.
It’s the tenth year in a row that Buffett has contributed to the foundations, which include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and four other charities headed by his family.
The donations will all go to charities affiliated with the Buffett family. That includes Buffett’s education-focused charity, which is named for his late wife Susan, the Nebraska-based Sherwood Foundation, which is chaired by their daughter, the Howard G. Buffett foundation chaired by his son, and the NoVo Foundation, headed by Buffett’s youngest son Peter.
Buffett is the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, a $160 billion holding company, and his donations will be in the form of 20.6 million Class B shares that were worth more than $2.8 billion at Thursday’s close.
The Oracle of Omaha is worth an estimated $70 billion and has made headlines for his philanthropic efforts in the past. In 2006 he announced his intention to gradually give away all of his shares in Berkshire Hathaway. Last year, he gave away 21.7 million shares, now worth nearly $3 billion.
In 2010, Buffett launched The Giving Pledge with Bill Gates, and so far more than 130 billionaires have signed on to a commitment to give their fortunes away.