Not too long ago, the commonly accepted wisdom was that the bulk of Warren Buffett’s fortune would go to the Gates Foundation when he died. After all, that’s what he indicated back in 2006, and he’s spent the intervening years pumping up Gates’ already-prodigious endowment with regular gifts often outweighing Bill Gates’ own.
Nevertheless, we’ve spent a good part of the last 10 years wondering whether Buffett’s commitment to Gates was really quite so set in stone. One big reason is that it hasn’t been all-encompassing: He’s long paired his Gates gifts with substantial contributions to the four foundations helmed by his three children, often in the hundreds of millions apiece.
Now, nearly two decades later, the 93-year-old Buffett put it plainly in recent comments to the Wall Street Journal: “The Gates Foundation has no money coming after my death.” Instead, the vast majority of the Oracle of Omaha’s fortune — currently pegged at around $128 billion — will go into a charitable trust when he passes away, to be overseen by his children.
Buffett already signaled that intention last November in a Berkshire Hathaway news release. “My three children are the executors of my current will as well as the named trustees of the charitable trust that will receive 99%-plus of my wealth pursuant to the provisions of the will,” he said at the time. “They were not fully prepared for this awesome responsibility in 2006, but they are now.” His recent comments to the Journal confirmed that. “I feel very, very good about the values of my three children, and I have 100% trust in how they will carry things out,” Buffett said.
Buffett stepped down from Gates’ board in 2021, a position he’d held since — you guessed it — 2006. However, as of late last year, it was still possible that the charitable trust Buffett referred to in the November release would merely serve as a vehicle to transfer most of his money to the Gates Foundation.
But now that we know it won’t, we also know that three figures will preside over the biggest exercise in family philanthropy of our time: Susie, Howard and Peter Buffett.
The next-gen Buffetts told the Journal there’s a lot they still don’t know about how that’ll go down. But Warren made it clear that when he passes away (which could still be some time from now; his longtime associate Charlie Munger lived to 99), Susie, Howard and Peter will have to decide unanimously where they want to direct something in the ballpark of $130 billion in charitable dollars.
To put that figure in perspective, that’s nearly double the Gates Foundation’s current endowment. If the younger Buffetts established a new private foundation with the money, it would have to give away over $6 billion a year to satisfy the 5% minimum — only the Gates Foundation currently tops that. Perpetuity may be unlikely, though. In his Giving Pledge letter, Buffett stipulated that “at the latest, the proceeds from all of my Berkshire shares will be expended for philanthropic purposes by 10 years after my estate is settled. Nothing will go to endowments; I want the money spent on current needs.”
It’s uncertain whether Susie, Howard and Peter will abide by any kind of 10-year spend-down timeline. As of these most recent revelations, Warren may not require them to. But however you slice it, the philanthropic interests of the younger Buffetts stand to benefit from field-altering infusions of cash.
Where might that money go? Judging from the Buffett children’s giving so far, there’s a good chance a vast sum will end up benefiting women and girls — reproductive rights in particular.
Susie Buffett, 71, chairs the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named for Warren’s late first wife. In that capacity, she presides over the largest private reproductive health backer in the world, which also happens to be the largest of the Buffett kids’ four foundations. Through STBF, Susie Buffett (and Warren, by extension) has quietly done more than any other American megadonor for abortion care at a time when it’s been increasingly embattled. In addition, she heads the smaller Sherwood Foundation, which gives mostly in the family’s home state of Nebraska — and on top of that, she established the Buffett Early Childhood Fund. With all that going on, Susie Buffett more than merited a spot on our list of the 50 most powerful women in philanthropy last year.
To add to that, Peter Buffett, 66, and his wife Jennifer have also been leading givers for women and girls through their NoVo Foundation, which long occupied a spot as a top-tier funder of intersectional gender justice causes. That is, until 2020, when NoVo made its infamous choice to sharply pare down its women and girls’ funding. Immediately following that, Peter’s giving through the foundation became much more low key, with a lot of it centered on local projects in Kingston, New York. But the NoVo Foundation has kept the spigot open at a more modest level for a variety of progressive-aligned causes including Indigenous rights, local environmental justice and some women’s groups.
Then there’s Howard Buffett, 69, who gives through the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. Known for his agricultural interests (he’s an active farmer), Howard carries that through in his philanthropy via global giving for food security, which he pairs with conflict mitigation support overseas and giving to address public safety and human trafficking in the U.S. Abroad, Howard’s charitable endeavors happen to have the most in common with those of the Gates Foundation — see, for instance, his big bet on agricultural innovation in Rwanda. Since 2022, he’s also been one of U.S. philanthropy’s foremost supporters of aid for Ukraine, committing hundreds of millions of dollars to the embattled country. Meanwhile, women and girls’ causes haven’t been as prominent a priority for Howard, who, as a registered Republican (before the Trump era, at least), diverges somewhat from his siblings ideologically.
Despite that, and despite substantial variety in their philanthropy, some common threads link the three younger Buffetts. Among them are land use, agriculture and conservation — key themes for Howard that also appear quite frequently for Peter, especially as he’s pivoted toward more local-level projects, as well as for Susie through some of the Sherwood Foundation’s local funding. And there’s the theme of women and girls’ support linking Susie, Peter and Howard, to some extent, via his giving to address human trafficking.
I should note that when it comes to women’s giving — and particularly if the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation is any guide — any massive future outlay for reproductive care will be the part of this array of giving areas most likely to attract unwanted attention from the right. That may include GOP lawmakers eyeing changes to philanthropy’s ground rules to punish progressive donors.
Finally, if we take their father at his word, all three younger Buffetts “have a common belief that dynastic wealth, though both legal and common in much of the world including the United States, is not desirable.” That may be true, and it’s also true that nearly all of Warren’s wealth will go toward charitable purposes, and not, as it were, into Susie, Howard and Peter’s pockets.
The flip side is that using a charitable trust effectively shields Warren Buffett’s entire hoard from taxation upon his death, while still giving the younger Buffetts full control over what’ll happen to it, albeit within the realm of philanthropy. So while this may not be dynastic wealth in a technical sense, it still carries a distinctly dynastic flavor. And that’s doubly the case if Susie, Howard and Peter end up transferring sizable sums into their own foundations, as they very well might.
