Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is back in the game for richest person in the world: Bill Gates just gave away $4.6 billion (£3.6 billion). And yet, that only accounts for 5 per cent of his fortune.
US Securities and Exchange Commission filings released earlier this week show that Gates donated 64 million Microsoft shares in early June to an undisclosed recipient.
Those shares could be headed anywhere, but the best bet is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which among many projects is educating women and combating infectious diseases in poor, rural areas of the world.
(In December, Gates said he thought the world was "vulnerable" to a deadly outbreak because medical tools and research were not up to date.)
Gates gave away $16 billion (£12.5 billion) of Microsoft shares in 1999 and $5.1 billion (£3.9 billion) in shares in 2000, Bloomberg reports. That makes the June donation this year his biggest since 2000, as well as the biggest share donation in 2017 among very rich and philanthropic men. Business magnate and investor Warren Buffet comes in second.
As of now, Gates's Microsoft shares account for only a 1.3 per cent stake in the company, and his fortune at an approximated $86.1 billion (£67 billion). Bezos is once again in spitting distance of being the richest human in the world, with an estimated net worth of $83.7 billion (£65 billion).
But, then, Jeff Bezos didn't just give away 5 per cent of his fortune to charity.
