Warren Buffett Dumps $4.1 Billion of His Wealth into Leftist, Family Foundations

Billionaire Warren Buffett announced Wednesday that he would donate $4.1 billion in Berkshire Hathaway shares to five left-wing foundations.

Currently the sixth-richest man in the world, Buffett boasts a net worth of $104.5 billion, the vast majority of which is in shares of Berkshire Hathaway, a multinational conglomerate with an estimated market cap of over $600 billion, of which he is CEO. One the largest public firms in the world, Berkshire Hathaway has its hands in everything from insurance to underwear.

In 2006, Buffett announced his intent to give away the vast majority of his fortune in annual gifts to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, the Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, and the NoVo Foundation. Buffett’s daughter, Susan Alice Buffett, leads the Sherwood Foundation, which formerly bore her own name. The NoVo Foundation operates under the leadership of his son Peter Buffett. Buffet’s son Howard leads the foundation bearing his name.

Of the five routine recipients of Buffett’s donations, only the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is not run, founded by, or named for a member of his family. Buffett had, however, been a trustee of that organization for years before announcing his resignation Wednesday.

“For years I have been a trustee — an inactive trustee at that — of only one recipient of my funds, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMG). I am now resigning from that post, just as I have done at all corporate boards other than Berkshire’s,” Buffett said, according to CNBC.

Buffett’s beneficiaries primarily work toward left-wing social causes, in Nebraska and nationwide. The Sherwood Foundation’s mission statement, for example, reads: “The Sherwood Foundation® promotes equity through social justice initiatives enhancing the quality of life in Nebraska.”

Likewise, the NoVo Foundation, which works to end violence against women, also “seeks to foster a transformation in global society from a culture of domination and exploitation to one of equality and partnership.”

The Howard G. Buffett Foundation seeks to “catalyze transformational change to improve the standard of living and quality of life, particularly for the world’s most impoverished and marginalized populations.”

The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, formerly just the Buffett Foundation until it was renamed for Warren’s late wife, funds college scholarships but is quietly one of the nation’s largest contributors to pro-abortion, population control, and “reproductive health and family planning,” Influence Watch noted.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, meanwhile, is well-known for its work on left-wing, globalist initiatives including gender issues, equity, vaccination, and more. The organization has been a loud proponent of “vaccine equity” amid the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, advocating for a globalized approach to vaccinating the world population.

Wednesday’s announced $4.1 billion marks the latest in a string of annual gifts to those groups aimed at achieving Buffett’s goal of giving away all of his Berkshire Hathaway shares. Buffett possessed 474,998 shares in 2006 and now claims a total of 238,634 shares, making Wednesday’s contributions a halfway point toward transferring them all to foundation ownership.

“Today is a milestone for me,” Buffett said. “In 2006, I pledged to distribute all of my Berkshire Hathaway shares — more than 99% of my net worth — to philanthropy. With today’s $4.1 billion distribution, I’m halfway there.”

Forbes totals the value of Buffett’s contributions since 2006 at $41 billion, based on the share price at the time of each transfer. Despite giving away half of his shares, Buffett’s net worth, now over $100 billion, has seen a net increase over the period due to a steady rise in the value of his remaining stake in Berkshire Hathaway.