Bill and Melinda Gates, a divorce with global consequences
The breakup is much more than a family affair due to the impact on the work of his global aid foundation
Game over, the game begins. It should be understood as a two-way departure: that of family estrangement and that of negotiating a matter of global significance.
The breakup of Bill and Melinda Gates, who forged their wealth at Microsoft, is much more than the end of another couple of billionaires, or the washing in the light of high-pompadour dirty laundry.
The Gates have yet to transfer the $ 50 billion committed to their foundation
Once the news broke on Monday, allusions to Jeff Bezos, the creator of Amazon and the richest man on the planet, and the divorce in 2019 of his wife, Mackenzie, emerged. Aside from being lucky and living in the Seattle (Washington state) area, there is a notable difference. Bezos was investing in his own business - his neighbors don't see him as a loose guy - while the Gates amassed a huge net worth - America's largest private farmland owners, among many other things - which did not stop them from showing their generosity.
Since 1994 and only until 2018 they have donated some 36,000 million dollars.
Since 2000 they do so through their foundation, the main charitable organization in the world. Their philanthropic effort, whose pioneering impact transformed this terrain, has focused on health (they invested in vaccines already before the covid), education or climate change.
It is clear that it is more than a divorce since questions are raised about the international effects of that separation. In their statement they assured that they will continue to share the reins of that powerful money distribution weapon. No one doubts, however, that its effectiveness will depend on how friendly the separation from the couple is in the end. Within the same foundation, with 1,600 employees, speculation soared.
Bill and Melinda had pledged to donate a value of 50,000 million to their foundation. But that money has yet to be transferred, according to The New York Times.
"The marriage is irretrievably broken," said Melinda in the petition that she presented this past Monday in court. It doesn't seem random that she took this step once Rory, the youngest of her children, has turned 18.
For Bill Gates, now 65, the fourth richest person in the world, with more than 120.00 million dollars, his relationship with Melinda was a Cartesian love. As he himself confessed, he displayed the pros and cons on a blackboard before deciding to get married. The method above all else. She, 56, wrote in her memoir There is no turning back (2019), which the two connected out of mutual love of math problems and puzzles.
They had met at Microsoft, the technology company that Bill Gates founded in 1975 with Paul Allen, and which she joined in 1987. They were married on New Year's Day 1994, on the island of Lanai (Hawaii). After 27 years and three children (Jennifer, Phoebe and Rory), the Gates face the question of unraveling a fortune of this size and of consequences for public life.
In this legal claim "the dissolution of our marriage" is requested and the division of communal properties, commercial interests and liabilities, "as established in our separation contract", is indicated. That pact, which some think comes from a prenuptial agreement, has not been disclosed in detail.
It is unknown how many assets will become part of the divorce distribution process. The Gates founded the Giving Pledge with their friend Warren Buffett in 2010, promising to donate almost all of their capital while alive.
Melinda left Microsoft in 1996 to dedicate herself to her children, but Bill said they were a "truly equal" couple. Although family investments were made by the Cascada Investment firm, each one has its own company, with its own interests, which may no longer coincide in the great puzzle of the Gates.
