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Millionaires and billionaires
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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is spending millions in China, a fraction of its total funding

  • Since 2002, the Gates Foundation has spent US$377.6 million in China across 271 grants largely focusing on preventing disease, including Covid-19
  • The billionaires’ divorce appears amicable and is unlikely to impact their charity in the short term

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Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation, leave the Elysee Palace after they received the French Legion of Honour medal in Paris on April 21, 2017. The couple have given away hundreds of millions of dollars in China, and tens of billions globally. Photo: EPA-EFE
Tracy Qu
On Monday, Bill and Melinda Gates, one of the world’s richest couples, shocked the world with the announcement that their 27-year marriage was coming to an end, raising questions about the impact on the couple’s philanthropy, which has seen hundreds of millions of dollars poured into China over the last couple of decades.
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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is one of the world’s richest non-profit organisations with 1,600 employees globally. It is known for its work in areas of public health, education and climate change. There are currently no planned changes for the foundation and the couple will remain co-chairs, the organisation said in a statement.

“We continue to share a belief in that mission and will continue our work together at the foundation, but we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives,” the couple said in a joint statement posted to Twitter.

The divorce settlement is expected to be one of the largest ever made, possibly topping the US$38 billion that MacKenzie Scott got when in 2019 she separated from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man with a current net worth of US$193 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Bill Gates, co-founder of tech behemoth Microsoft, is the world’s fourth-richest person with a net worth of US$145 billion.
Bill Gates gives a child a rotavirus vaccine against diarrhoea at the Ahentia Health Centre in Ghana on March 26, 2013. Much of Gates’ philanthropy has focused on health care and fighting preventable diseases. Photo: AFP
Bill Gates gives a child a rotavirus vaccine against diarrhoea at the Ahentia Health Centre in Ghana on March 26, 2013. Much of Gates’ philanthropy has focused on health care and fighting preventable diseases. Photo: AFP
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Bill and Melinda Gates have spent years looking for new ways to give away their fortune. They started the foundation in 1994, when it was known as the William H. Gates Foundation. In 2000, it was merged with the Gates Learning Foundation under its current name.

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