Gates Foundation Trust

The Gates Foundation Trust is a private foundation related to the Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation Trust holds the endowment for the Gates Foundation, funds it, and makes investment decisions for the foundation’s endowment. It was created after billionaire and friend of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, pledged over $30 billion in stock in his company Berkshire Hathaway to the Gates Foundation; the Trust was established to prevent the appearance of a conflict of interest while allowing Buffett to participate in Gates Foundation grantmaking. ¹

History and Purpose

The Gates Foundation Trust was created in October 2006 as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, several months after billionaire investor (and friend of Gates Foundation benefactor Bill Gates ²) Warren Buffett announced a plan to give the Gates Foundation $31 billion, the vast bulk of Buffett’s estate, in annual gifts spread out over a decade or more. As part of the gift, Buffett became one of three trustees of the Gates Foundation and participates actively in the foundation’s grantmaking. ³

Because the gift would consist mostly of annual transfers of stock in Buffett’s corporation, Berkshire Hathaway, the Gates Foundation was concerned that Buffett would be accused of using the Gates Foundation endowment to continue to control the company at second hand. The solution was to split the Gates Foundation into two entities, a grantmaking entity and the Gates Foundation Trust, an investment management entity that funds the foundation and manages the foundation’s endowment assets. Bill and his then-wife Melinda, but not Buffett, are trustees of the Foundation Trust, and the foundation’s endowment is managed by a team of outside investment managers. ¹

Investment Policy and Portfolio

The Gates Foundation Trust’s investment policy reflects Bill Gates’ personal interests and values and does not invest solely on the basis of maximum return. The Gates Foundation Trust states that there are certain companies in which it will not invest because their “profit model is centrally tied to corporate activity that [the Gateses] find egregious.” For this reason, the Gates Foundation Trust does not invest in tobacco- or Sudan-related stocks or equities. ⁴

At the end of the first quarter of fiscal year 2020, the Gates Foundation Trust had an equity portfolio value of $31.35 billion, with 16 total equity holdings. Its top five holdings were Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway; Waste Management, Inc.; Caterpillar, Inc.; Canadian National Railway Co.; and Walmart, Inc. ⁵

People

According to its 2023 tax filings, Bill Gates was listed as CEO and a Trustee of the Fund, with his previous wife Melinda French Gates also listed as a trustee. In May 2024, Melinda stepped down as Co-Chair of the Gates Foundation, leading Bill to becoming the sole chair of the Foundation and thus making him the sole trustee of the Fund as of January 2025. ^{6 7}

By 2020, Michael Larson was previously listed as manager of the Gates Foundation Trust. Larson was a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration who since 1994 has been the head of Gates’s investment company, Cascade Investments. ⁸ That firm manages both the Gates Foundation Trust and Gates’s personal assets, together estimated to be worth $80 billion as of a 2014 report. ⁹