# Bill Gates donates £3.6 billion in Microsoft shares - Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2017/08/18/bill-gates-donates-3-6bn-microsoft-shares/ - Published: 2017-08-18T10:00:59+01:00 - Author: Melanie May **Bill Gates has donated 64 million of his shares in Microsoft worth £3.6 billion in his biggest donation to date.** The donation was revealed in a recently released [US Securities & Exchange Commission filing](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/789019/000122520817013968/xslF345X03/doc5.xml) and is Bill Gates’s biggest since setting up the [Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation](https://www.gatesfoundation.org/) in 2000. The recipient is not known but is widely expected to be the Gates’s Foundation. Bill Gates’s net worth is currently estimated at $90bn. This latest donation reduces his stake in Microsoft to 1.3%. Gates previously gave away $16bn in shares in 1999, and a further $5.1bn in 2000. The majority has gone to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. ## Advertisement The donation is the biggest made so far this year. The second biggest charitable gift made globally this year came from Warren Buffet, who donated $3.17bn of Berkshire Hathaway stock to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and four family charities in July. Well known for their philanthropy, Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet also created the Giving Pledge in 2010, which encourages the very wealthy to publicly pledge the majority of their wealth to philanthropy. Originally focused on the US, it has since spread globally, and this year saw easyJet’s [Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou](https://fundraising.co.uk/2017/06/12/easyjet-founder-pledges-half-fortune-charity/) join the Pledgers. * **[Microsoft launches Nonprofit Community: a space to talk about tech & AI](https://fundraising.co.uk/2024/02/05/microsoft-launches-nonprofit-community-a-space-to-talk-about-tech-ai/)**( 5 February 2024) * **[Windows Live Messenger to generate funds for charities](https://fundraising.co.uk/2007/03/03/windows-live%c2%a2-messenger-generate-funds-charities/)**( 3 March 2007) * **[Microsoft shares sales income with NSPCC](https://fundraising.co.uk/2008/12/04/microsoft-shares-sales-income-nspcc/)**( 4 December 2008) ![Loading](https://fundraising.co.uk/wp-content/plugins/page-views-count/ajax-loader- 2x.gif)