Warren Buffett declined to commit to continuing his annual multibillion-dollar donations to the Gates Foundation following revelations about late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s relationship with the nonprofit and its co-founder, Bill Gates.
In his first televised interview since stepping down as Berkshire Hathaway’s chief executive in January, Buffett told CNBC he has not spoken with Gates since February DOJ released documents showing that Gates and Epstein met repeatedly to discuss philanthropy after Epstein’s 2008 guilty plea for Florida prostitution charges.
Buffett, who began giving away his fortune in 2006 and has donated over $47 billion of Berkshire Hathaway’s stock to the Gates Foundation, said he will wait and see what unfolds. He also mentioned that he is learning things he didn’t know.
The foundation stated that Bill Gates took responsibility for his actions when he discussed Epstein in a town-hall meeting with employees. A spokesperson for the Gates Foundation declined to discuss Buffett’s comments but called him an “extraordinarily generous partner” whose financial support helped accelerate progress on some of the world’s toughest challenges.
In a separate statement, a spokesperson for Bill Gates said, “Gates has acknowledged it was a serious error in judgment to meet with Epstein. As he’s stated before, he is committed to answering all questions and demonstrating that he was never a part of Epstein’s criminal activity.”
Buffett said his donations to the Gates Foundation would end when he dies, with 99.5% of his remaining wealth going to a charitable trust overseen by his children. The New York Times reported that Buffett had grown concerned about the foundation’s bloat and its reduced appetite for taking risks that could lead to more effective philanthropy.
Documents released by the DOJ included photos of Gates posing with Epstein, as well as with women whose faces are redacted. Gates has said his relationship with Epstein was confined to philanthropy and that it was a mistake to meet with him. He has also denied spending time with victims of the financier’s sexual abuse.
Earlier this month, Vanity Fair magazine reported that Epstein appeared to arrange a “large portion” of $8 million in Gates Foundation grants between 2013 and 2019 to a think tank focused on global peace and security, but possibly associated with securing visas for young Eastern European women. The foundation told Vanity Fair that Epstein was not involved in its grantmaking processes.
Buffett told CNBC he was not sorry about having donated to the foundation but wished certain things hadn’t happened. He also expressed astonishment at how Epstein conned so many people before being arrested on sex-trafficking charges in July 2019, and died the following month in a Manhattan jail.