Wed | May 15, 2024

Bill, Melinda Gates divorcing, to maintain foundation

Published:Tuesday | May 4, 2021 | 12:28 AM
In this February 1, 2018 photo, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda take part in an interview with The Associated Press in Kirkland, Washington. The Gateses announced on Monday they were calling time on their marriage.
AP
In this February 1, 2018 photo, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda take part in an interview with The Associated Press in Kirkland, Washington. The Gateses announced on Monday they were calling time on their marriage.

SEATTLE (AP):

Bill and Melinda Gates said on Monday that they are divorcing but would keep working together at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the largest charitable foundations in the world.

In identical tweets, the Microsoft co-founder and his wife said they had made the decision to end their marriage of 27 years.

“We have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works all over the world to enable all people to lead healthy, productive lives,” they said in a statement. “We ask for space and privacy for our family as we begin to navigate this new life.”

Bill Gates was formerly the world’s richest person and his fortune is estimated at well over US$100 billion. How the couple end up settling their estate and any impact on the foundation will be closely watched, especially after another high-profile Seattle-area billionaire couple recently ended their marriage.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Bezos finalised their divorce in 2019. MacKenzie Scott has since remarried and now focuses on her own philanthropy after receiving a four per cent stake in Amazon, worth more than US$36 billion.

The Gateses were married in 1994 in Hawaii. They met after she began working at Microsoft as a product manager in 1987.

In her 2019 memoir, The Moment of Lift, Melinda Gates wrote about her childhood, life and private struggles as the wife of a public icon and stay-at-home mom with three kids. She won Bill Gates’ heart after meeting at a work dinner, sharing a mutual love of puzzles and beating him at a math game.

The Seattle-based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the most influential private foundation in the world, with an endowment worth nearly US$50 billion. It has focused on global health and development and US education issues since incorporating in 2000.