Buffett To Give Away Berkshire Shares By 2035 At $10-30B+ A Year, Says He Initiated Google Investment And ChatGPT Warning

Warren Buffett has stopped making annual stock gifts to the Gates Foundation. In a CNBC exclusive interview with Becky Quick on “Squawk Box” on July 15, 2026, the 95-year-old Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A)(NYSE:BRK.B) chairman said he has given the foundation roughly $47 billion in total gifts and will not give it more, redirecting his annual Berkshire share disbursements to his three children’s foundations instead. The same interview covered Berkshire’s more than $31 billion stake in Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Buffett’s continued confidence in Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Tim Cook, his read on new Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh, and why he still trusts Greg Abel with, in his words, the painting he has spent a lifetime refining.

All quotes below are credited to CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Quotes are very lightly edited for clarity, such as filler words being removed.

Why the Gates Foundation stopped getting his shares

Quick pressed Buffett on the reversal. In 2024, he had called his commitment to the Gates Foundation, the philanthropic organization founded by Bill and Melinda Gates that funds global health and development work, a lifetime pledge. By 2026, that had changed. Buffett was likely referring to controversies involving Bill Gates’s relationship with disgraced former financier Jeffrey Epstein.

“So then is it fair to say, 20 years ago, in 2006, when you made this decision, you trusted the Gates Foundation more than your children, and now you trust your children more than the Gates Foundation?” Quick asked.

“No, the amounts were different. I didn’t say that I trusted them differently, but I felt they were capable of handling it,” Buffett said. “And I was certainly not going to turn something over to my kids and then pull it back from them. The Gates Foundation has turned out to earn far more money than they expected to do. They spend more money than anybody in the world that I can think of.”

Quick put the Gates Foundation’s endowment at “north of $90 billion.” Buffett agreed: “It’s around that figure.” According to HFA’s 990-PF database, the Gates Foundation Trust had $77.6 billion in assets at the end of 2024. The gap to “north of $90 billion” reflects roughly two years of growth since then, even as Bill Gates completed a $12.5 billion divorce settlement with his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, finalized in 2021. Nearly $8 billion of that settlement went to Pivotal Philanthropies Foundation, the nonprofit Melinda French Gates founded after leaving the Gates Foundation in 2024. Melinda French Gates has said her ex-husband’s association with Jeffrey Epstein was one factor in her decision to divorce him.