Melinda French Gates Net Worth: What Does Bill Gates' Ex-Wife Plan To Do With Her $11.4 Billion Wealth?

(Photo : Chip Somodevilla)
Experts Meet On Investing In Adolescents At World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings
WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 20: Gates Foundation Co-Chair Melinda Gates participates in a panel discussion during the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings April 20, 2017 in Washington, DC. The panel discussion, titled 'How Investing in Adolescents Today Can Change the World of Tomorrow,' focused on the the World Bank Group's Generation Now initiative.

Other than the $50 billion Gates Foundation, Melinda French Gates will gradually give away her riches through philanthropy.

In November, nearly seven months after announcing their divorce, she and Bill Gates, 66, wrote letters online about their respective plans for giving away their wealth.

Bill Gates' ex-wife won't give promise of the endowment to Gates Foundation

Pivotal Ventures, founded in 2015 by French Gates, is a charitable investment organization focused on delivering "new solutions to challenges affecting women and families in the United States."

In 2010, the couple signed the Giving Pledge, a pledge to give away the bulk of their money in their lifetimes or their wills. Last week, Bill and Melinda Gates reorganized their foundation in Seattle, adding four new trustees to the board of directors, with the possibility of adding up to nine more in the future.

Additions to the initial slate are being discussed to increase diversity in terms of gender, location, and expertise. French Gates will stand down from the foundation within two years if the ex-couple can't work together, as they promised last year. Apart from the foundation's endowment, French Gates will get money from Gates for her charity efforts if she leaves.

In the months since they announced their separation, Gates has already transferred billions of dollars worth of shares in firms to French Gates, Financial Post reported.

Melinda Gates' net worth

According to Forbes' real-time billionaire tracker, French Gates' net worth is $6.1 billion. With an endowment of more than $50 billion, the Gates Foundation is one of the world's greatest charitable organizations, with the former marriage contributing an extra $15 billion to the foundation last summer.

If French Gates resigns as a co-chair and trustee in 2023, she will be compensated for her philanthropic efforts by Bill. Last year, the foundation stated that the funds would be "totally distinct from the foundation's endowment, which would not be harmed."

Earlier this month, the Gates Foundation recruited four new members to its Board of Trustees to assist in monitoring the foundation's work. This is the first time since Warren Buffet's departure from the board that new trustees have been added to the board.

In 2015, French Gates founded Pivotal Ventures, a venture capital firm that focuses on challenges that affect women and families in the United States. In 2019, she pledged to provide $1 billion to Pivotal over 10-years to advance gender equality, as per Forbes.

Bill Gates has yet to make a public declaration about how Melinda's new vow would affect his pledge to donate the foundation majority of his money. In his most recent promise letter, which was released in November, Bill stated that the Gates Foundation would continue to receive the majority of his fortune.

When Gates and billionaire Warren Buffet, a former trustee of the Gates Foundation, pushed the world's wealthiest people to give up more than half of their wealth, they made the initial vow in 2010.

Following the divorce and Buffet's departure over the summer, the foundation recently recruited four new members to its board of directors. While Bill and Melinda Gates presently serve as co-chairs of the foundation, Melinda has stated that she may quit in 2023 if she and Bill decide that they can no longer work together, per Mail Online.