Bill Gates and his wife Melinda announce their divorce after 27 years together
They married in 1994 and over the years they both distanced themselves from computing, Bill Gates left the company in 2014 to devote himself full time to philanthropy.
Bill Gates, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, and his wife Melinda, creators of a gigantic foundation that fights poverty and disease, announced their divorce on Monday after 27 years of marriage.
"After much thought and work in our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage," they said in a joint statement posted on Twitter.
The couple, one of the wealthiest in the world with an estimated fortune of about $ 130,000 million, announced that they will continue to work together at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which they created more than two decades ago to combat poverty, disease and inequality on the planet.
But "we no longer believe that we can grow together as a couple in this next stage of our lives," said the Gates, who have three children, without explaining the reasons for their separation.
The couple asked for "space and privacy for our family" as they begin "to navigate this new life."
Bill Gates, 65, is currently the fourth richest man in the world, according to Forbes, behind two other Americans, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, as well as Frenchman Bernard Arnault, albeit ahead of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
He created his first software programs in his parents' garage before co-founding Microsoft. He met Melinda, now 56, when she was a young Microsoft employee in 1987, the year she graduated with a degree in computer science.
They married in 1994 and over the years they both distanced themselves from computing, Bill Gates left the company in 2014 to devote himself full time to philanthropy.
One of the goals of the foundation he built with his wife in Seattle, in the western state of Washington, is to eradicate polio and malaria.
They also invest in initial education and have allocated more than 1,000 million dollars to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, contributing to the Covax mechanism, the global initiative that organizes the purchase of vaccines for 92 poor countries in the world and dozens of other countries.
The Gates transferred $ 20 billion of Microsoft shares to their foundation, which is the world's largest private charitable organization.
Since 2000 the foundation, which has 1,600 employees, has invested $ 53.8 billion, its website notes.
Billionaire Warren Buffett has also donated billions of dollars to the agency, and has promised to donate most of the fortune to the foundation when he dies.
The Gates say the progress is tangible: the number of children under five who die each year has dropped by half since 2000. “Millions more children are surviving. That makes us optimistic, ”says the couple.
