Billionaire Bill Gates Has 65% of His Foundation's $45 Billion Portfolio Invested in 3 Outstanding Stocks
Gates' influence on his foundation's portfolio extends well beyond Microsoft stock.
Bill Gates is one of the best-known billionaires in the world. He reached an unforeseen level of wealth in the late 1990s as Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) soared to become the most valuable company in the world. Gates' net worth topped $100 billion in 1999, 18 years before anyone else would reach that level. By 2000, Gates stepped down as CEO of the company he founded to focus more on philanthropy and the newly created Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (a combination of three previous family foundations).
Today, the Gates Foundation manages a trust with a publicly traded portfolio valued at $45 billion, as of this writing. While it contains holdings in 25 stocks, including several stocks donated directly from Gates' personal portfolio, nearly two-thirds of that portfolio is held in just three outstanding stocks.
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