Bill Gates 宣布計劃捐出「幾乎所有」財產，並在 20 年內結束蓋茨基金會

 Recently Yahoo News on-line picked up the following:

Bill Gates announces plan to give ‘virtually all’ his money away and end the Gates Foundation in 20 years

Clare Duffy, CNN

Thu, May 8, 2025 at 7:07 a.m. PDT 3 min read

When Bill and Melinda French Gates created the Gates Foundation in 2000, they had planned for the organization to continue its work, using their remaining fortune, for several decades after they died. But now, the billionaire Microsoft founder says he doesn’t want to wait that long to give away most of his wealth.

Gates announced on Thursday that he now plans to distribute “virtually all” of his wealth — around $200 billion, he estimates — within the next 20 years, before shuttering the foundation on December 31, 2045.

The announcement comes as President Donald Trump’s administration is working to slash funding for health, foreign aid and other public assistance programs — the types of causes the Gates Foundation supports — raising concerns about stalled progress on research and other crucial projects.

Gates wants to accelerate the foundation’s work on global health and equity initiatives and hopes the move will set a model for other billionaires, he said in a blog post published Thursday morning. The pledge builds on Gates’ track record of promoting philanthropy. He, along with ex-wife French Gates and Warren Buffett, launched the Giving Pledge in 2010 to encourage wealthy individuals to donate most of their fortunes to charitable causes either during their lifetimes or in their wills. It now has more than 240 signatories.

“People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that ‘he died rich’ will not be one of them,” Gates, who turns 70 later this year, wrote. “There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people.”

The Gates Foundation, one of the world’s largest philanthropies, has already given away more than $100 billion since its founding, including to develop new vaccines, diagnostic tools and treatment delivery mechanisms to fight disease around the world. Gates has increased the pace of his giving in recent years, especially following the pandemic, but Thursday’s announcement marks a dramatic acceleration in the mobilization of his wealth. The Gates Foundation called it the “largest philanthropic commitment in modern history.”

Over the next 20 years, the Gates Foundation will focus on three main goals: ending preventable deaths of moms and babies, eradicating deadly infectious diseases and lifting hundreds of millions of people around the world out of poverty.

In its announcement, the foundation raised concerns about what it described as stagnant global health trends. And in an interview with the Financial Times published Thursday, Gates accused fellow billionaire Elon Musk of “killing the world’s poorest children” because of his work at the Department of Government Efficiency cutting US international aid programs.

However, in his blog post Thursday, Gates expressed optimism that advancements in artificial intelligence, in combination with his giving, could increase the rate of progress.

Gates’ current net worth is $108 billion; Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index ranks him as the fifth wealthiest person in the world. Now, he said his net worth will fall 99% by 2045. The $200 billion he expects to give away through the foundation over the next 20 years will come from its existing $77 billion endowment and his personal wealth, including any earnings from ongoing business investments such as TerraPower, the nuclear power company he founded,

French Gates exited the Gates Foundation last year following the couple’s high-profile divorce in 2021. She said in 2022 that she would not give away the bulk of her wealth through the Gates Foundation.

The announcement comes weeks after Microsoft, now worth more than $3 trillion, marked 50 years since it was founded by Gates. “It feels right that I celebrate the milestone by committing to give away the resources I earned through the company,” he wrote.

Translation

Bill Gates 宣布計劃捐出「幾乎所有」財產，並在 20 年內結束蓋茨基金會

當 Bill 及 Melinda French Gates 在2000年創建了蓋茨基金會 (Gates Foundation) 之時，曾計劃在他們去世後的幾十年裡，基金會會繼續利用餘下的財富去運作。但現在，這位微軟創辦人億萬富翁表示，他不想等那麼久才捐出他的大部分財富。

Gates (蓋茨) 週四宣布，他計劃在未來 20 年內分配「幾乎所有」財富 - 他估計約為 2,000 億美元 - 然後在 2045 年 12 月 31 日結束基金會。

在這項聲明發布之際，特朗普總統的政府正在努力削減醫療及外援助和其他公共援助項目的資金 - 即蓋茨基金會所支持的事業類型 - 這引發了人們對科究和其他關鍵項目進展停滯的擔憂。

蓋茨在周四上午發表的一篇部落格文章中表示，他希望加速基金會在全球健康和公平倡議方面的工作，並希望此舉能為其他億萬富翁樹立榜樣。這項承諾延續了蓋茨一直以來推動慈善事業的優良傳統。 2010 年，他與前妻 French Gates 聯同 Warren Buffett (巴菲特)共同發起了「捐贈誓言」活動，鼓勵富人在其有生之年或遺囑中將大部分財富捐獻給慈善事業。目前已有 240 多人簽署這誓言。

今年晚些時候將迎來 70 歲生日的蓋茨寫道： “當我去世時，人們會談論我很多事情，但我決心不會說 ‘他死時很富有’ ”; “有太多緊急問題需要解決，讓我穩控着能用來幫助別人的資源。”

蓋茨基金會是世界上最大的慈善機構之一，自成立以來已經捐贈了超過 1,000 億美元，包括用於開發新的疫苗、診斷工具和治療機制，以對抗世界各地的疾病。近年來，尤其是在疫情之後，蓋茨的捐贈步伐加快了，但周四的聲明標誌著他的財富動用速度急劇加快。蓋茲基金會稱其為「現代史上最大的慈善承諾」。

未來20年，蓋茨基金會將專注於三大目標：消除產婦和嬰兒可預防的死亡、消滅致命傳染病以及幫助全球數億人擺脫貧困。

該基金會在聲明中對其所描述的全球健康趨勢停滯不前表示擔憂。在週四發表的蓋茨接受英國《金融時報》採訪一文中，他指責億萬富翁馬斯克 “殺害了世界上最貧困的兒童” ， 因為他在政府效率部削減了美國的國際援助項目。

然而，蓋茨在其週四的部落格文章中表示出樂觀，認為人工智慧的邁進加上他的捐贈可以加快進步的速度。

蓋茨目前的淨資產為 1,080 億美元；彭博億萬富翁指數將他列為全球第五大富豪。現在，他說他的淨資產到 2045 年將下降 99%。他預計在未來 20 年透過基金會捐贈的 2,000 億美元, 是將會來自基金會現有的 770 億美元捐贈基金和他的個人財富，包括現正在進行的商業投資收益，例如他創立的核電公司 TerraPower，

2021 年，蓋茨夫婦高調離婚。去年，French Gates 退出了蓋茨基金會。 2022 年，她表示不會透過蓋茲基金會捐出大部分財富。

在宣佈這發表前幾週，正值蓋茲所創立微軟的 50 週年，微軟目前的市值已超過 3 兆美元。他寫道： “我認為透過捐出我在公司賺取的資源來慶祝這個里程碑是正確的。”

              So, Bill Gates has announced that he plans to distribute “virtually all” of his wealth within the next 20 years, before shuttering the foundation on December 31, 2045. Over the next 20 years, the Gates Foundation will focus on three main goals: ending preventable deaths of moms and babies, eradicating deadly infectious diseases and lifting hundreds of millions of people around the world out of poverty. It is nice to hear about this donation project. Apparently, globally many people, rich or poor will benefit from his donations. Thank you, Mr. Bill Gate.