The Microsoft co-founder and his wife say they will continue to work together at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest charitable foundation.
Bill and Melinda Gates announced in identical tweets Monday that they were ending their 27-year marriage.
They said they “no longer believe” that they can grow as a couple.
The American business magnate and co-founder of Microsoft is the third richest man in the world
The couple met during a business dinner in 1987 when Melinda Gates was a product manager at Microsoft. The pair then married around seven years later.
The financial details of the separation have not been revealed. Both Gateses have signed on to Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge, promising to donate most of their fortune to charitable causes.
What is the Gates Foundation?
- The couple established the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000 in Seattle
- The foundation focuses primarily on public health, education and climate change
- Its grants included some $1.75bn to vaccine initiatives and research during the Covid-19 pandemic
- In 2019, the foundation had net assets of more than $43bn
- Bill and Melinda Gates pumped more than $36bn into the foundation between 1994 and 2018
Source: Reuters news agency
While the pair may branch off into separate charity initiatives, analysts say the work of the Gates Foundation is likely to continue.
“They have built this from the ground up, over the last 20 years, they share a deep commitment to it,” US author and journalist David Callahan told BBC World Service.
“The work of the foundation is likely to go on. This is not some small family foundation that’s going to fall apart because their marriage is falling apart,” he said.
