Bill Gates' children will not inherit all of his fortune (2024)

Despite an estimated joint fortune of $130.5 billion with his divorced wife, Bill Gates doesn't believe his three children are entitled to the full inheritance.

Though many people might believe being brought up by wealthy parents means the children will be entitled to enjoy a privileged life, this isn't typically the case.

Celebrities such as Gordon Ramsay and Elton John have reported that they will not allow their children to enjoy their fortune.

Gates - once the world's richest man - agrees.

The same man who held off giving his kids a cellphone until they were 14 sees limiting their access to his wealth as his favour to them.

At a Canada TED conference in 2014, Gates announced that most of his wealth would be donated to the family’s Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

However, he didn't specify a specific share that his children - now 27, 24 and 21 - would receive.

Forbes has estimated the value of the parent's fortune to be worth $130.5 billion (£94 billion).

Fast forward to 2017, the Microsoft CEO took part in a Reddit: Ask Me Anything. He confirmed that his three children would each inherit $10 million (£7.2 million), which is less than one per cent of his wealth.

Gates explained: 'I definitely think leaving kids massive amounts of money is not a favour to them.

Warren Buffett was part of an article in Fortune talking about this in 1986 before I met him and it made me think about it, and decide he was right'.

In May 2021, Bill and Melinda Gates announced that they were calling it quits after 27 years of marriage. They stated: 'after a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage'.

Despite the separation, the billionaire philanthropists said they would continue to work together at the family's foundation - the world’s largest private charity.

Whether the separation will have any financial impacts on the family's wealth - or will cause the Gates parents to have a change of heart - is uncertain.

Microsoft CEO Bill Gates essentially created the footsteps of college-dropout on to be billionaire when he left Harvard in 1975. Though years on, Harvard did eventually award Gates with an honorary - despite never completing his bachelor's degree.

It would set the trend for future tech billionaires such as Google co-founder Larry Page and former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to follow suit.

Featured Image Credit: Variety / Contributor / Getty / Melinda Gates Instagram