BILL Gates has shelled out $8 billion for his ex-wife’s charity five years after their bombshell split over his affairs.
Gates made the $7.88 billion donation to Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Philanthropies Foundation in 2024, The New York Times revealed.
The sum, one of the largest public donations ever recorded, was revealed in a new tax filing which shows the first specific financial terms of the couple’s high-profile split in 2021.
Melinda resigned from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in May 2024.
Upon leaving the charity, she suggested her ex donate $12.5 billion to a new charitable foundation she intended to create.
A representative for Pivotal told the Times the $12.5 billion agreement has been fulfilled, and the nearly $8 billion donation was part of that agreement.
It is unclear how the rest of the total was split.
Melinda set up her Pivotal Philanthropies Foundation in late 2022, the year after the divorce.
At the end of 2023, it had $604 million on hand.
The pair dramatically split after 27 years together in 2021, embarking on what is considered the most expensive divorce settlement in the world.
Melinda received approximately $76 billion in assets.
Months later, details of Gates’ affair with a Microsoft employee were exposed.
The woman penned a letter to the company’s board in 2019, divulging details about the fling which began in 2000 and demanded that his wife Melinda “read it”.
Microsoft’s board investigated the women’s claims and deemed the relationship “inappropriate”, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.
Gates suddenly quit the board in March 2020 while the investigation was still in progress – and before the board could make a formal decision on the matter.
Two further bombshell reports were then revealed, alleging Gates had routinely hit on staffers at Microsoft and at the philanthropic foundation he founded alongside his wife.
A separate shocking report claimed that Gates had sought marriage advice from Jeffrey Epstein, with whom he reportedly shared a “close” relationship, having first met the convicted sex offender in 2011.
Gates’ and Epstein’s friendship first came to light in 2019, months after Epstein killed himself in his Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial on charges of child sex trafficking.
The two men reportedly spent time together on multiple occasions, flying on Epstein’s private jet – dubbed the “Lolita Express” – and attending late-night gatherings at his Manhattan home.
Gates has always denied witnessing any wrongdoing during any of his meetings with Epstein and previously said he “regrets” ever meeting with him. His spokesperson also claimed he did not know that the jet belonged to Epstein.
However, the Daily Beast reported that Gates would visit Epstein’s New York City Mansion to escape his unhappy marriage and the pair were reported to be “close.”
He allegedly visited the shamed money-manager dozens of times between 2011 and 2014.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15757897/bill-gates-8-bn-divorce-payout-melinda-split/