Gates Foundation ends an era, selling off all remaining Microsoft stock

The Gates Foundation trust no longer owns any shares of Microsoft, the company that made Bill Gates one of the world’s richest people and ultimately led him to launch the Seattle-based global health organization 26 years ago.

The sale was disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Friday, with 7.7 million shares sold for approximately $3.2 billion, as first reported by The Times of India.

The move doesn’t reflect any souring on the Redmond, Wash., tech giant but is the continuation of a Microsoft selloff that began in the last quarter of 2023. The assets that fund the foundation are independently managed by a separate entity, the Gates Foundation Trust.

The foundation’s trust was once heavily concentrated in Microsoft stock — at its 2022 peak, those shares represented 27% of its holdings, per International Business Times.

One year ago, the foundation announced that it would sunset in 2045, with Gates pledging to give away $200 billion — nearly all of his wealth — over the next two decades through the organization.

Cascade Asset Management Company, which manages the foundation’s trust, did not respond to a request for comment.

On the same day as the foundation’s selloff, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and his firm Pershing Square Capital Management snapped up approximately 5.65 million shares of Microsoft worth about $2.09 billion. The purchase was funded by the sale of Pershing Square’s Alphabet holdings.

“Microsoft operates two of the most valuable franchises in enterprise technology, which account for approximately 70% of the company’s overall profits: M365 and Azure,” Ackman said on X.

Wall Street was less enthusiastic following Microsoft’s quarterly returns in April, sending the company’s stocks down 5% after the disclosure that its capital expenditures would hit roughly $190 billion this year.

The Gates Foundation is the world’s largest philanthropy and has disbursed more than $110 billion since its founding, supporting global vaccinations, educational programs, women’s health and other initiatives. The organization has been ramping up its grantmaking, issuing $8.5 billion last year, and committing to distributing $9 billion this year.

“There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people. That is why I have decided to give my money back to society much faster than I had originally planned,” Gates wrote in announcing his philanthropic plans last May.

By the end of last year, the foundation’s endowment was worth $89 billion.

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