Microsoft"s chairman Bill Gates recently put a rest to some rumors that he was planning to return full time to Microsoft, saying he was committed to his work with his charitable organization the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This week, Reuters reports that Gates will donate a whopping $750 million to The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
The global AIDS fund has in the past helped to fund a quarter of the efforts around the world to fight the spread of HIV and AIDS as well as the majority of money to help combat TB and malaria. However, the fund"s money has been drying up in recent years. In 2011, the organization announced it would not be able to issue any new grants until 2014.
In his announcement this week, Gates urged other world governments to help add money to the fund, saying, "These are tough economic times, but that is no excuse for cutting aid to the world"s poorest." There has been some criticism of how the fund has handled its finances but Gates praised how the organization has dealt with the situation, saying, "We"ve looked at where they"ve found money that wasn"t applied properly and how they tracked that ... the fact is the internal checks and balances have worked."
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated over $28 billion so far to help combat health issues in third world countries as well as for improving education in the US. Gates has said he plans to donate the vast majority of his Microsoft created wealth to charitable causes.