OMAHA, Nebraska – Warren Buffett said he found fellow billionaire Bill Gates’ association with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein “distasteful”, but decided to stop donating to the Gates Foundation because his children were getting older and ready to distribute his wealth.
“I tell the three children that it is theirs, and it’s their responsibility to get it done well,” Buffett said in interview on CNBC on July 15.
The comments were broadcast one day after the 95-year-old Berkshire Hathaway chairman omitted the Gates Foundation from his annual mid-year charitable donations, when he donated nearly US$6 billion (S$8 billion) of his conglomerate’s stock.
Buffett had donated more than US$47 billion of Berkshire stock to the Gates Foundation since 2006.
His latest donation, comprising 12 million Class B shares, is instead going to four foundations led by his children, Susie, Howard and Peter.
Following the donations, Buffett will have since 2006 donated more than US$23 billion of Berkshire stock to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, Sherwood Foundation, Howard G. Buffett Foundation and NoVo Foundation.
Buffett said Gates, a longtime friend who was also a Berkshire director for 16 years, visited him in Omaha three weeks ago.
That meeting followed the US Department of Justice’s release in February of files about Gates’ relationship with Epstein, including efforts at philanthropy.
Gates also met with Congress in June about the financier. He has repeatedly expressed regret for having anything to do with Epstein, and has not been accused of crimes.
“While it’s distasteful, while he made mistakes, I made mistakes in hiring all kinds of people, or choosing friends, and then finding out later that one way or other they weren’t what I thought,” Buffett said.
Buffett, nonetheless, called donating to the Gates Foundation a “good decision” and expressed no regrets for his relationship with Bill Gates.
“We have had an enormous number of good times together,” he said. “It has been a wonderful friendship.”
Epstein died in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019, following his arrest on sex trafficking charges. New York City’s medical examiner called the death a suicide.
In the July 14 announcement, Buffett also accelerated the timetable to distribute his remaining Berkshire shares, which represent an approximately 13 per cent stake in the US$1.06 trillion conglomerate.
Buffett now wants the shares distributed by the end of 2034, rather than 10 years after his death. He noted his children’s advancing ages. Susie Buffett, the oldest, will be 81 by the end of 2034.
“I re-evaluated my whole situation,” Buffett said on CNBC. “It’s not just a question of mortality. It’s a question of keeping your marbles.” REUTERS
