Bill Gates - co-founder of Microsoft, and its former CEO and chairman - has donated 64 million of his shares in the company, valued at around $4.6 billion.
His donation, which was made on June 6, was recorded in a filing to the US Securities & Exchange Commission. The filing did not reveal the recipient of the donation, but it seems likely that most, if not all, of it went to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the charitable organization that Gates and his wife established to oversee their philanthropic efforts around the world.
According to Bloomberg, Gates" latest donation is his largest gift of Microsoft shares since 2000, and represents a significant reduction of his stake in the company. In 1996, Gates had a 24% stake in Microsoft, but following his donation in June, that has fallen to just 1.3%.
Last month, Gates was briefly overtaken by Jeff Bezos as the world"s richest person, before the Amazon CEO"s fortune dipped with a fall in his company"s share price. Even with Gates" recent donation, his fortune is now around $86.1 billion, keeping him ahead of Bezos.
Source: Bloomberg