These Billionaires Who Won’t Leave Their Fortune To Their Kids
While learning about billionaire money habits, you may want to learn more about the billionaires who won’t leave Their Fortune To Their Kids? Yes, it’s actually a thing, as these great men and women are going to do the shocking deed!
Creating a will or leaving a fortune for one’s kids has been a practice for so many generations. Some parents work so hard to make sure that they gather sufficient assets, money, properties, and many more. That way, their children don’t suffer or go through much stress in life after they have gone. Some children get it so easy because their parents go ahead, divide and share their fortune among them.
But, the fact remains that it is totally optional and not compulsory for parents to will their fortune to their children, which some high profile billionaires have decided to leave little or nothing from the bulk of their fortune to their kids. Instead, they have plans of donating most of their fortune to charity. If you look at these on the deeper side, this billionaire money habits that may be vital to your personal finance strategies.
We don’t honestly know what drives their money habits, but many of them like our very own Chuck Feeney carry out billionaire money give away while alive and long after they are gone. And so, in this article, let’s look at one glaring billionaire money habit – giving away their enormous wealth instead of leaving it for their kind.
This article would tell you about some of those billionaires that have decided to leave little or none of their fortunes for their kids.
1)Bill Gates ( Net worth – $114 billion)
Bill Gates is the founder of Microsoft, and he is worth about $114 billion. He is the second richest man in the world. He is an ardent philanthropist and plans to give most of his fortune to charity. Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda Gates, are the owners of the world’s largest charitable foundation.
It is known as “The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,” and it is aimed at removing disease, poverty, and hunger all over the world. Bill Gates is also a co-founder of another charitable organization, “Giving Pledge,” which encourages wealthy people around the world to donate most of their fortune to philanthropic causes. It was founded in 2010 alongside his fellow billionaire, Warren Buffet.
Bill Gates believes that not leaving a great fortune for his kids would force them to find their own part and become relevant and famous in life. He thinks leaving kids with a massive amount of fortune is not a favor to them. So, Bill Gates has promised to give only about $10 million each to his children. He would donate the rest of his fortune to charitable causes.
2)Warren Buffet ( $79 billion)
Warren Buffet, who is currently the fourth(4th) richest man in the world with a fantastic net worth of $79 billion, according to Forbes. He became famous as an investor and when he served as the CEO and Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, which is a company that holds and owns stakes in many companies, including American Express, Duracell, Apple, Kraft Heinz and many more. Buffet is considered as “one of the most successful investors of all time” by Forbes.
Buffet is also a keen philanthropist, and he made it clear to fortune in 1986, that he will leave his kids “with sufficient money so that they will feel they can do anything, but not so much that they could do anything.” Alongside Bill Gates, Buffet is also a co-founder of a charitable organization known as “Giving Pledge.” Buffet is determined to donate over 99% of his fortune to philanthropic causes, during his lifetime or at the time of his death.
Instead of directly giving part of his fortune to his children, Buffet has promised to offer roughly $2.1 billion of Berkshire Hathaway stock to each of his children’s charities as a gift to the success of the foundation. Then most of his fortune will go to the Bill and Melinda Foundation, with some percentage also donated to the Susan Thompson Buffet Foundation, that the tycoon was founded with his first wife.
3)Mark Zuckerberg ($96 billion)
Mark Zuckerberg is the co-founder of the famous “Facebook.” According to Forbes, he is worth $96 billion. He is among the top richest men in the world.
In 2015, after the arrival of his first daughter (Max), Mark and his wife, Priscilla Chan, posted an announcement on Facebook. The post declared that they would be donating 99% of Max’s inheritance to charity.
According to The post, Mark and Priscilla desired their daughter, Max, to grow in the world, which is better than theirs. They also promised to play their role in achieving their desire, not just because of the love they have for her, but also the responsibility they have for other children.
Mark and Priscilla later launched the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative(CZI), which is focused on “curing diseases, connecting people, personalized learning, and building strong communities all over the globe.”
Since then, the couple has gotten another daughter named August.
4)Michael Bloomberg ( Net worth – $54.9 billion)
Michael Bloomberg is among the top richest man in the world, according to Forbes, with a net worth of $54.9 billion. He cofounded financial information and media company, Bloomberg L.P. in 1981. Bloomberg owns 88% of his business and gets revenues amounting to over $10 billion. He is an astute business magnate and was once the former mayor of New York City, United States of America.
He is a committed philanthropist and has donated more than $5 billion to climate change, gun control, and other causes. He has openly said that he would be giving his whole fortune before he dies, and most of it would be donated to his self-titled philanthropic initiative named “Bloomberg Philanthropies.”
In his Giving Pledge letter, he stated that anyone willing to show how much they love their children by doing something for them is to start by supporting organizations that would make the world a better place for them and their children. He has two daughters named Georgina and Emma, and they both work for philanthropic causes.
5)Andrew Lloyd Webber ( Net worth – $1 billion)
Andrew Lloyd Webber is famously known for his great musicals like Phantom of the Opera and Cats, and others. Though he is worth over $1 billion, his five kids would not make great success from his fortune.
Webber does not have any form of belief in inherited money. He is not a supporter of children getting so much money from their inheritance, because it will kill their zeal to work hard. He promised to support his children in life, but he said he would not allow them to own his company.
Instead of giving his fortune to his children, Webber wishes for his fortune to be recycled into the theater for the raising and support of upcoming musicians.
6)Pierre Omidyar ( Net worth – $18.8 billion)
Pierre Omidyar is a co-founder of the online auction firm, eBay. He became a billionaire in 1998 when eBay went public. He currently owns 5% of eBay and 6% of PayPal, and he is worth $8.7 billion. He is the founder of “First Look Media,” which is the parent company of “The Intercept and the entertainment company “Topic Studios.”
He is also a keen philanthropist. And, through his Omidyar Network, which was launched in 2004, he has donated about $1.4 billion into impact investment and non-profits that fight global problems. He is also a devoted member of the Giving Pledge and determined to give most of his fortune to charitable works throughout his lifetime.
Omidyar and his wife, Pam, wrote in their letter that they have more money than what their family would ever need. So, instead of withholding all the money, it is better to use the funds to tackle and solve various problems around the world.
7)Larry Page (Net worth – 69.4 billion)
Larry Page was the co-founder of “Google,” in 1998 alongside his Stanford Ph.D. colleague, Sergey Brin. He is also a founding investor of “Planetary Resources,” which is a space exploration company. He is sponsoring “flying car” startups Kitty Hawk Opener. Page is currently worth over $50 billion.
Page also signed the “Giving Pledge,” and Page and his wife have promised to donate a considerable part of their vast fortune.
8)George Lucas ( Net worth – $5.7 billion)
George Lucas, who is popularly known for creating the “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” stories, is an American TV and film producer. In 2012, Lucas sold his “Star Wars” company and “Lucasfilm,” which is a production company, to The Walt Disney Company for $4.1 billion in stock and cash. He is currently worth about $5.7 billion.
Lucas has four children, one of his daughters was adopted from his first marriage. He later had another two adopted children, and his fourth daughter is with his second wife, Mellody Hobson.
Lucas is now more concentrated in philanthropic works, and his charitable family foundation has over $1 billion in assets. The construction of Los Angeles’ upcoming Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, is being funded by Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson.
Lucas is a great philanthropist, and he focuses more on educational, philanthropic projects, which most of his money goes and will go into. He founded the “George Lucas Educational Foundation,” which is also known as “Edutopia.” The main focus of the foundation is to research and promote educational practices that are used in schools so that children can get the best out of education.
9)Chuck Feeney
Chuck Feeney was a billionaire who has always wanted to go broke because of his radical and excessive philanthropic nature. He was the co-founder of “Duty-Free Shoppers Group.” Feeney, who was once worth $8 billion, but donated it all to charitable causes, until he was left with $2 million. Since Feeney founded the “Atlantic Philanthropies” over 35 years ago, he has been silently committed to giving out all his whole fortune to charitable causes. He also signed the “Giving Pledge.”
One of his children, Leslie Feeney Baily, even said that, though it seems weird how Chuck Feeney lives a simple life and uses most of the money for charitable causes, it was helpful to his kids because people treat them as ordinary, rather than giving them any particular preference. So, the children of Feeney are not expecting anything from his fortune because they understand his perception of goodwill and charitable causes (Read more about Chuck Feeney).
And there you have it, the billionaires who won’t leave their wealth for their children. So, what’s it to you, what do you think about these billionaires money habits? For me, I believe it is about their intentions are great. However, not everyone thinks so? So, let’s hear your opinions in the comments section below.