Melinda French Gates has received at least $10.8 billion from Bill to bolster her philanthropy supporting women and families.
Bill Gates has made $2 billion in additional payments to his ex-wife Melinda French Gates’ foundations, part of a promise he made when she left the Gates Foundation in 2024.
Newly released nonprofit filings for that year show that Bill donated $982 million each to two of Melinda’s foundations, Pivotal Philanthropies Opportunities and Pivotal Philanthropies Momentum.
That’s in addition to $8.9 billion that Bill donated to two other foundations of Melinda’s, whose 2024 tax filings were previously released over the past two months. Forbes was the first to report a $7.9 billion gift to Pivotal Philanthropies, her main philanthropic vehicle. A $982 million donation to Pivotal Philanthropies Pathways was first reported by the New York Times.
The latest gifts bring the total that Bill has given to Melinda’s four foundations to $10.8 billion. That’s $1.7 billion shy of the $12.5 billion with which he agreed to fund her new endeavors when she resigned from their foundation in 2024—but according to a Pivotal spokesperson, their agreement has been fulfilled. It is not clear when or where the remainder was given.
The pair share a long history of transformative philanthropy. They cofounded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000 with the intention of giving away the majority of their immense fortune (Forbes estimates Bill and Melinda are currently worth $106 billion and $29.6 billion, respectively). Together, they have donated at least $52.6 billion to other nonprofits, including at least $543 million through Pivotal Philanthropies. That’s enough to rank them as the second biggest givers in the world.
The since renamed Gates Foundation—which for nearly two decades has also received annual gifts from Warren Buffett, the world’s most generous philanthropist—made $83.3 billion in grants from its inception through 2024. Known for its work towards reducing tuberculosis and eradicating polio, among other initiatives, the foundation has had an increasingly seismic impact on global health. With an annual budget of $9 billion, it dwarfs the World Health Organization, which is budgeting $6.2 billion for its work in 2026 and 2027 combined.
While Bill and Melinda continued to work together at the foundation for several years following their 2021 divorce, Melinda announced her resignation in May 2024. She wrote on LinkedIn at the time that Bill had agreed to transfer her $12.5 billion “to [fund] my work on behalf of women and families.”
By then, Melinda had already been building up her own philanthropic initiatives. She founded an umbrella organization known as Pivotal in 2015, then launched its private foundation arm in 2022 and three smaller branches—Pivotal Momentum, Opportunities, and Pathways—in 2023. (Those smaller foundations were originally named after birds—Rosefinch, Greenfinch and Snowfinch—before being rebranded in 2024.) A fifth foundation, Firefinch, has not yet reported receiving any contributions.
It’s not clear how these five foundations’ missions differ, though they’re all part of Pivotal, which is “working to accelerate the pace of social progress for women and young people in the U.S. and around the world,” according to its website.
The main Pivotal foundation doled out $487 million in 2024 and announced several notable initiatives last year, including a $250 million project funding over 80 women’s health organizations around the world. None of Pivotal’s smaller foundations had made any charitable distributions as of their 2024 tax returns.
The Pivotal ecosystem also includes a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization, the Pivotal Initiatives Fund, which will focus on advocacy and make political donations. There is also a private investment company called Pivotal Ventures LLC.
Perhaps because of the hefty sums that went to his ex-wife’s philanthropy in 2024, Bill donated significantly less to the Gates Foundation that year, gifting just $104.7 million to the foundation itself and the charitable trust that funds it. With an endowment of $86 billion through that trust, as of July 31, it still has plenty to give away before its intended sunset in 2045.
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This story was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
