Warren Buffett, one of the world’s famous businessmen, has resigned as a trustee of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Warren Buffett has resigned due to the disruptions in the charity due to the divorce between the founders of the foundation. Buffett, 90, has announced his resignation in a statement on Wednesday.
He did not clearly state why he was leaving the Gates foundation board at this time, and expressed his support for the foundation’s current CEO and its direction.
“My goals are 100% in sync with those of the foundation,” Buffett, 90, said Wednesday in a statement that also announced he had reached the halfway mark in giving all of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. shares to charity.
Over the last 15 years, Buffett has donated more than $27 billion of his own money to the nonprofit. He is one of the three board members of the Gates Foundation, alongside Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, who announced their separation last month after 27 years of marriage. According to the foundation, Buffett has no say in the endowment’s investment selections.
The 21-year-old foundation has become one of the most powerful and influential forces in global public health, spending more than $50 billion over the past two decades to bring a business approach to combating poverty and disease.