According to a person familiar with the matter, Bill and Melinda Gates (Bill and Melinda Gates) announced their divorce in order to avoid causing trouble to Warren Buffett (Warren Buffett), the "god of shares".
Buffett is a close friend of the Gates and a partner of the Gates Foundation. For Buffett, the most important day on his calendar is Berkshire Hathaway.The company's annual general meeting of shareholders. Buffett will answer a series of questions at the shareholders' meeting, and it is inevitable to make headlines.
The Gates announced their divorce on May 3, two days after Berkshire Hathaway's 2021 shareholder meeting. Authoritative media reported that this is to prevent Buffett from answering any questions related to Gates at the shareholders' meeting.
"they avoided 'Buffett had to deal with this', that is, wait until the end of the annual shareholders' meeting before announcing the divorce," the report quoted reliable people familiar with the matter as saying. "
Buffett and Gates have been friends for 30 years. According to Forbes, Buffett is the sixth richest person in the world, while Gates ranks fourth.
In July 1991, they first met at a party organized by Gates mother Mary Maxwell Gates (Mary Maxwell Gates). At first, both billionaires were hesitant about whether to attend the party, but later made the same decision.
Gates, who served on the Berkshire Hathaway board for 16 years, left last year to focus on his foundation.
In 2006, Buffett announced plans to donate most of his then $44 billion fortune to the Gates Foundation, and he is now the third trustee of the Gates Foundation.
As of last July, Buffett had donated a total of $37.4 billion to charities, about 80 per cent of which went to the Gates Foundation and the rest to an institution run by his children, or the Susan Thompson Buffett (Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation) Foundation, named after his late wife.