In 2010, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates and his then-wife Melinda French Gates, along with fellow billionaire and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, started the Giving Pledge: a movement encouraging billionaires to donate at least half of their wealth during their lifetimes or at death. More than 250 of the world’s wealthiest have signed the pledge, but many have so far failed to live up to it.
“Have they given enough? No,” French Gates said in an interview with Wired published Tuesday.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday also called the Giving Pledge a failure—but for different reasons. While he called it “well intentioned,” Bessent said the pledge was “very amorphous” and claimed wealthy people made the commitment out of fear that the public would “come at it with pitchforks.” But Bessant too pointed out that not many billionaires have actually delivered on their promise to donate their fortunes. Bessent’s comments came at the heels of the Trump administration’s announcement of “Trump Accounts” for children, seeded by a $6.25 billion donation from Susan and Michael Dell.
In a recent letter to shareholders, Buffett also appeared to distance himself from the Giving Pledge, saying his philanthropic plans weren’t as “feasible” as he once thought. “Early on, I contemplated various grand philanthropic plans. Though I was stubborn, these did not prove feasible,” Buffett wrote. “During my many years, I’ve also watched ill-conceived wealth transfers by political hacks, dynastic choices and, yes, inept or quirky philanthropists.”
