Warren Buffett likely to give away $6 bn in Berkshire stock soon. How much he’ll have left.
Warren Buffett likely will soon give away $6 billion in Berkshire Hathaway stock in his annual donation to the Gates Foundation and four Buffett family philanthropies, under a giving program started in 2006.
The Berkshire Hathaway CEO typically makes the annual gifts in late June. Buffett, 94, gave away $5.3 billion of Berkshire stock a year ago to the five foundations.
Under a formula established in 2006, Buffett reduces the amount of donated shares by 5% annually, but the value of those donations has risen along with Berkshire stock. The company’s shares have climbed 19% since June 28, 2024, when last year’s donations were made.
Even after giving away more than half his Berkshire stock since 2006, Buffett likely will be left with about 198,119 Berkshire Class A shares after the new donations—a stake worth $144 billion, Barron’s estimates. Through last year, the five foundations had received $55 billion of Berkshire stock, based on Berkshire’s stock price at the time of the donations. Buffett hasn’t bought or sold any Berkshire stock over that period, and likely won’t do so through his death.
Buffett began his donations of Berkshire stock in 2006. At that time, he held 474,998 Class A shares, a roughly 30% stake in the company. That interest would be worth $346 billion now if he hadn’t sold any stock, based on the current A share price of about $729,000.
In making the donations, Buffett converts his Class A stock into Class B stock. This is part of his strategy to maintain voting control of Berkshire, even as his economic stake in the company diminishes. The Class B stock has roughly one-seventh the vote of the Class A stock on an equivalent basis.
Buffett held a 14.4% economic interest in Berkshire at the time of the 2025 proxy statement in March, but his voting interest is 30.4% since his ownership consists almost entirely of A shares. Buffett eliminates high-vote A stock with his donations. The B shares now represent well over half the Berkshire shares outstanding. Class A stock can be converted to Class B stock, but not the other way around.
The Gates Foundation, overseen by Bill Gates, is the major Buffett beneficiary, getting about 75% of Buffett’s annual donations.
The four Buffett foundations get the rest. They are the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named for Buffett’s late wife; the Sherwood Foundation, run by Buffett’s daughter Susan, a Berkshire board member; the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, run by Buffett’s son Howard, another Berkshire board member; and the NoVo Foundation, run by Buffett’s son, Peter.
The giving dynamics will change upon Buffett’s death when his three children will oversee the disposition of his whole estate, consisting almost entirely of Berkshire stock.
That stock, which makes up about 99.5% of Buffett’s net worth, will go into a newly created charitable trust; his three children will be charged with donating it over a period of more than 10 years, Buffett has stated.
The future Buffett charitable trust will likely be the largest in the world and could give away over $10 billion annually, more than the $8 billion given away by the Gates Foundation last year.
Later this month, the three Buffett children’s foundations likely will get donations of Berkshire stock more than $300 million each. Howard Buffett has focused his philanthropic efforts on Ukraine in recent years, while Susan Buffett makes most of her foundation’s donations in Nebraska, while Peter Buffett has concentrated his philanthropy in the area around Kingston, NY.
Warren Buffett wants his annual donations to be spent and not banked by the foundations. As a result, the Gates Foundation steadily sells the Berkshire stock that it receives annually to fund its giving programs.
Write to Andrew Bary at andrew.bary@barrons.com