Earlier this week, co-founder and former CEO of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda French Gates, announced on Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) that they will divorce after 27 years of marriage. The two stated that they still intend to continue to work together on their joint philanthropic work.
"After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage," the pair wrote in a statement tweeted by Bill Gates.
"Over the last 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. We continue to share a belief in that mission and will continue our work together at the foundating, but we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives," the couple added, referring to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the most influential private foundation in the world, with an endowment worth nearly $50 billion, according to MarketWatch. The foundation has focused on global health and equality efforts since its inception in 2000. The foundation is most praised for its work in reducing deaths caused by malaria and other infectious diseases in low-income countries.
Over the past year, the couple have been quite visible, with the pair regularly commenting on the state of the worldwide effort to combat to coronavirus pandemic. Their foundation also spent more than $1 billion towards pandemic relief and vaccine research.
While the financial details of the divorce were not disclosed at this time, Bill Gates currently owns 1.37% of Microsoft's outstanding shares, which is worth more than $26 billion and representing less than 20% of his wealth, according to CNBC. Much of the couple's wealth is tied up in their foundation.
Bill and Melinda Gates are also members, and co-creators, of the Giving Pledge, which requires participants to donate the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes. The couple founded the pledge with Berkshire Hathaway's (NYSE: BRK.B) Warren Buffett.
Bill Gates is ranked as the world's fourth richest person, according to Forbes, sitting behind Amazon's (NASDAQ: AMZN) Jeff Bezos, LVMH's (OTC: LVMUY) Bernard Arnault and Tesla's (NASDAQ: TSLA) Elon Musk. Forbes estimates that Gates's net worth is about $129 billion.
How the couple plan to settle their estate and any impact on their charity foundation will be closely watched by global markets.