Warren Buffett on Monday signed over much of his $44-billion fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, uniting the world's two richest people in a bid to fight disease, reduce poverty and improve education.
The roughly $30,7-billion donation doubles the Gates Foundation's size to $60-billion, five times larger than any other US charitable group and bigger than the gross domestic product of Kuwait.
"I am not an enthusiast for dynastic wealth, particularly when the alternative is six billion people having much poorer hands in life than we have," Buffett said at a signing ceremony with the Gateses at the main branch of the New York Public Library which itself is the product of several storied fortunes, including those of John Jacob Astor and Andrew Carnegie.
"In business, you look for the easy things to do," said Buffett, founder of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and long considered the world's leading investor.
"In philanthropy you are really tackling the problems that people of intellect, people with money have thought about in the past and have had a tough time coming up with solutions. So philanthropy is a tougher game."
The unveiling of Buffett's charitable intentions was orchestrated for maximum publicity.
More than 200 journalists thronged a function room at a midtown Manhattan hotel after the library signing ceremony for the news conference, featuring the Gateses and Buffett.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said the point of the publicity was to help coax "more of the people who are super-lucky to get involved" in philanthropy.
During the Q&A session, an Italian journalist asked whether Buffett had considered leaving his money to the U.S. government, which already is organized to address societal ills. The question got a laugh, but Buffett took it seriously, saying he thought the Gateses had shown a greater ability to maximize the per-dollar benefits "than if you dropped it into the federal treasury."
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