Warren Buffett: Ended Gates Donations to Give More to My Children, Not Because of Epstein Ties

Gentlemen, we brought you the news here yesterday that Warren Buffett has made his annual donations and this year for the first time in 21 years that list does not include the Gates Foundation. I sat down with Buffett to discuss his current relationship with Bill Gates, how he came to the decision to cut the foundation from his giving plan this year, and whether that is a permanent decision meaning that the Gates Foundation will no longer ever get any more money from Warren Buffett. That's correct, but in interpreting that I would point out that I read a great deal since January 1st in terms of what happened with Bill and Epstein and I've read his remarks to Congress given under oath and I've read cross-examination and while it's distasteful and while he made mistakes, I made mistakes in hiring all kinds of people or choosing friends and then finding out later that one way or another they weren't what I thought they were and so I found nothing in there that was beyond what I could see, I could picture myself doing and you know he ended it and I've had situations where I've made mistakes about people or people may have felt they made mistakes about me, but they you know life goes on and no one bats a thousand in the business of choosing people. You're talking about hiring decisions, maybe who you're associating yourself with and there were certainly some questionable decisions on that that came up in the release of these files, but there was also other you know personal information. There again I would say that you know I've known some pretty wonderful people and I still know some wonderful people, I don't think they've made every decision. So if that's your opinion on it, why are you no longer giving money to the Gates Foundation? I re-evaluated my whole situation, it's just like I've been doing since I was in my 20s and we got married, Susie and I, and we didn't really have any money but we did know that we intended to live fine and we intended to have a family and but we did not have aspirations of you know having six houses or a 500 foot yacht or anything of the sort. So even then we talked about what we would do philanthropically, but my idea and conviction was that I would compound money at a better rate than society generally and that Susie would give it away better than 99.9 percent of the people that were giving it away and she would get involved personally with the gifts whereas I like to do things wholesale and she liked to do things retail. So we had a plan but we didn't have any money. Why did you change your plan? Well we changed plans because of what I've said out here, the money began to pile up. No but you changed your plan now in 2024 you said it was a lifetime pledge to the Gates Foundation, now in 2026 you were saying that's not the case, what happened? Well what happened was that I gave the Gates Foundation a great deal of money. Maybe 47 billion dollars in total. And I had no and I thought that was a good decision, I think it was a decent decision, but I did not think my kids were in any way ready to give away vast sums of money. We'd started, Susie and I started with them, I think we gave them, we may have given them a hundred thousand dollars each. This goes back 30 years at this point or longer? That's about right, yeah. But they were growing children, they had children of their own by that time but still I don't think they were ready for it. 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? No the amounts were different, I wouldn't say that I trusted them differently but I felt they were capable of handling and I was certainly not going to turn something over to my kids and then pull it back from them. I mean and the Gates Foundation has turned out to earn far more money than they expected to do, they've spent more money than anybody in the world I can think of. Yeah they have an endowment of north of 90 billion dollars I think at this point? It's around that figure and Bill has very substantial resources outside which he intends to give and I believe, 100% I believe that they will go there. And I, you know, I've really done the same thing as Bill in a certain sense except when I put it in I tell the three children that it is theirs and it's their responsibility to get it done well and you may find this hard to believe but it's true. I've never looked at their form 990s which they file. I'm not judging each action as it takes place because you take actions where you think there's only a 10% or 20% probability of success. It's not like investments. Before we move on, does Bill Gates know about this? When we spoke with you in March you said you had not spoken with him since any of these allegations started coming out. He said the same thing last month in June when he sat down with this congressional testimony that he had not spoken with you since January. Have you spoken with him since and does this come as a surprise to him? No, no it does not come as a surprise and me, he came by almost three weeks ago or I kind of lose track on time but certainly not three months but three since we talked and we spent three hours talking together and he intends to call me. He's the one that initiates calls just generally and as you can see I'm available anytime but he's much more organized than I am and but he already proposed another one. Another meeting? Yeah and he is, we have had an enormous number of good times together since we met, whatever it was, well 1991 and he's always done more than a share, always more than a share. You don't see me doing the planning. And the friendship you mean? Yeah it's been a wonderful friendship and Bill and I are interested in enough things that overlap that we find plenty to talk about and each of us has got his own specialty to some extent. But you told him three weeks ago or so when you met him that you would not be making any more donations to the Gates Foundation? Yeah I may have even, may have even, I can't tell you exactly what I told him but at some point I had read the, I had read what Congress came up with, I've read everything and and all I can say is you know I don't know whether I've done a number of things but I've done things, I've just done many dumb things in life. I mean that is, all I have to do is look at our portfolio. I mean four out of five of our, at least four out of five of the decisions I've made have not been anything out of the ordinary. But he was okay when you told him? Yeah. This was okay. And we did hear from the Gates Foundation late yesterday. This is what they had to say. The Gates Foundation is grateful to Warren Buffett for his decades of support for our work. His gifts totaling more than 47 billion dollars have helped us expand and deliver on the foundation's mission to improve health and opportunity for people around the world. The foundation continues from a position of financial strength to advance our work through 2045, supported by Bill's 200 billion dollar commitment. Okay, I also asked Buffett how he's feeling. This is something that obviously he's about to turn 96 years old. We're just a little more than a month from that birthday. He did tell us that he broke his leg a few weeks ago. He had surgery and he's recovering well as you can see in that video. Saw him get up, he's already walking with some assistance, getting around walking again with that. He does say that he's been really lucky and that he hasn't broken a leg in his life until now and that while he has a lot to be thankful for, he's no longer thankful for the fact that he has never broken his leg somewhere along the line.