Bill Gates Pledges To Donate His Entire Remaining Fortune (Which He Predicts Will Grow To $200 Billion) To African-Focused Charities By 2045

On June 2, 2025, Bill Gates announced he was committed to giving away nearly all of his fortune over the next 20 years, with a focus on improving health, education, and economic opportunity across Africa. Gates made the announcement during a speech at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he emphasized that "unleashing human potential through health and education" could put every African nation on a path to prosperity. He reiterated that by the year 2045, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will sunset its operations, having spent the majority of his vast wealth on global development initiatives.

Gates also predicted that his current $160 billion net worth would be worth around $200 billion by 2045. So, in other words, Bill is committing to give away around $200 billion over the next twenty years.

But keep in mind- this future $200 billion is on top of the billions Bill has already given away or set aside for his foundation…

(PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP via Getty Images)

Where the First $100 Billion Went

Since launching the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000, Gates has already donated roughly $60 billion of his personal wealth to the foundation. His longtime friend and fellow billionaire Warren Buffett has contributed an additional $43 billion, bringing the foundation's total endowment to well over $100 billion. That funding has already been deployed across more than 100 countries to tackle global challenges ranging from infectious diseases to extreme poverty and education inequality.

A major focus has been global health. The foundation has contributed billions toward eradicating diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and polio. It helped launch Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which has vaccinated more than 1 billion children since its inception and is credited with saving an estimated 17 million lives. The foundation has also provided extensive support to the Global Fund, the World Health Organization, and pandemic preparedness initiatives, including early COVID-19 vaccine development.

In the United States, Gates has poured billions into education reform, including public school systems, charter school networks, and education technology tools. The foundation committed $1.7 billion to support U.S. education in 2021 alone, including efforts to help schools recover from COVID-19-related learning loss. Another $200 million has been earmarked to improve public school curricula and access nationwide.

(Photo by Brian Ach/Getty Images for The Lasker Foundation)

The Path Ahead

Looking ahead, Gates has made clear that Africa will be the primary focus of his final philanthropic push. In his 2025 speech, he outlined three long-term priorities: ending preventable deaths of mothers and children, eliminating deadly infectious diseases, and lifting millions out of poverty. He also encouraged African innovators to embrace artificial intelligence to revolutionize healthcare, noting that the continent skipped over traditional banking models and could now leapfrog legacy healthcare systems as well.

He cited examples like Rwanda, which has begun using AI-enabled ultrasound technology to identify high-risk pregnancies in remote areas. "Africa has a chance to build its next-generation health systems with AI already in the foundation," Gates said.

A Fortune Still Growing

The paradox of ultra-wealthy philanthropy is that even massive donations often fail to reduce a billionaire's net worth, because investment returns outpace their rate of giving. That's been true for Gates as well. In 2010, the year he co-founded the Giving Pledge, Gates had a net worth of $54 billion. By 2025, despite giving away tens of billions, his wealth had grown to $160 billion.

That dynamic is one reason why Gates is now aggressively accelerating his giving. He's made it clear he does not want to die with vast wealth still in his name. As he wrote in a recent blog post:

"People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that 'he died rich' will not be one of them."

With $100 billion already donated or pledged, and another $200 billion potentially still to be given away over the next two decades, Bill Gates is on track to become the most generous philanthropist in history — and one whose giving may continue to shape the global landscape long after his foundation shuts its doors.