Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, are ending their 27-year marriage but will keep working together in their charitable organizations.
Observers say that they could follow the template of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Bezos who finalized their divorce in 2019.
MacKenzie Scott has since remarried and now focuses on her own philanthropy after receiving a 4-percent stake in Amazon, worth more than $36 billion
AS the saying goes, money can’t really buy love although it can help make couples last longer than those who have no money.
Microsoft’s Bill Gates and his wife Melinda are getting a divorce, the couple has confirmed.
However, the two will still work together in their charity, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
In identical tweets, the Microsoft co-founder and his wife said they had made the decision to end their marriage of 27 years.
“We have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works all over the world to enable all people to lead healthy, productive lives,” they said in a statement. “We ask for space and privacy for our family as we begin to navigate this new life.”
Speculation is now rife as to how Gates, formerly the world’s richest person with an estimated fortune of about $130 billion, will split his estate with Melinda.
Observers say that they could follow the template of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Mackenzie Bezos who finalized their divorce in 2019.
Mackenzie Scott has since remarried and now focuses on her own philanthropy after receiving a 4-percent stake in Amazon, worth more than $36 billion.
The Gateses were married in 1994 in Hawaii. They met after she began working at Microsoft as a product manager in 1987.
In her 2019 memoir, “The Moment of Lift,” Melinda Gates wrote about her childhood, life and private struggles as the wife of a public icon and stay-at-home mom with three kids.
She won Bill Gates’ heart after meeting at a work dinner, sharing a mutual love of puzzles and beating him at a math game.
She also detailed the ways they navigated imbalances in their marriage and parenting journey and noted how working together at the foundation made their relationship better.
“Bill and I are equal partners,” Melinda Gates said in a 2019 interview with The Associated Press. “Men and women should be equal at work.”
The Microsoft Corp. co-founder and his wife, who operate the world’s largest private family charitable foundation, said they would continue their work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which said in a statement that the couple would remain as co-chairs and trustees.
David Callahan, editor of Inside Philanthropy, a digital publication, however, said there are "a lot of unanswered questions here."
The couple’s Seattle foundation is one of the most influential private foundations in the world, with an endowment worth nearly $50 billion (ONT)
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