Warren Buffet дарит 37 миллиардов Bill Gates-у

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Warren Buffet To Donate $37 Billion To Gates Foundation

June 26, 2006 2:22 p.m. EST

Julie Farby - All Headline News Staff Writer

New York, NY (AHN)-Warren Buffett, the world's second-richest person, is donating about $37 billion-more than 80 percent of his fortune-to foundations run by his friend Bill Gates and by the Buffett family.

The announcement by the 75-year-old Buffett comes just days after Microsoft Chairman Gates said he would move away from his day-to-day role at the software giant to focus more on charity work, and highlights the close friendship of the world's two richest men.

According to the Reuters report, the 50-year-old Gates is a bridge partner of Buffett's and a director of Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett's investment firm. Buffett also serves on the board of the Washington Post Co. with Gates' wife Melinda.

According to Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Buffet's donation is the largest commitment to a philanthropic cause ever made by one person in the United States. Palmer says, "Even if you look at what (John D.) Rockefeller and (Andrew) Carnegie gave historically -- even if you do it in today's numbers, it doesn't come close to that."

The Gates foundation is one of the world's richest philanthropic organizations-committing millions of dollars to fighting diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis in developing countries, and to education and library technology in the United States.

According to Forbes magazine, Buffett, chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, is worth an estimated $44 billion, making him the world's second-richest man behind Gates, who is worth about $50 billion.

In a letter to Gates and his wife, Buffett writes: "You have committed yourselves to a few extraordinarily important but underfunded issues, a policy that I believe offers the highest probability of your achieving goals of great consequence."

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http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/25/magazines/...rtune/index.htm