The rise and fall of Bill Gates and the long friendship of Warren Buffett

A friendship of decades.

The friendship between Gates and Buffett can be traced back to a single day: July 5, 1991.

Gates’ mother, Mary, invited the late Washington Post editor Meg Greenfield to her home. Greenfield planned to bring his girlfriend Buffett, Business Insider previously reported.

Gates didn’t want to take the day off work.

Mary Gates pressed her son to join them, but he didn’t want to take the day off work, Business Insider reported.

“What did he and I have to talk about, P/E ratios?” Gates later wrote in a column for Fortune. But he chose to appear because Greenfield also planned to bring legendary Post editor Katharine Graham, whom Gates wanted to speak with.

Friendship and mentorship alike.

Buffett has attended several Microsoft events, but has never served on the company’s board or invested in the tech company, Business Insider previously reported.

In 2018, he said it would be a conflict of interest because of their close friendship.

But Gates didn’t have the same concern.

Gates didn’t seem to worry that much about a conflict of interest.

He joined Berkshire Hathaway’s board in 2004 after the death of Buffett’s first wife, who was a board member, Market Watch reported.

Both say they have laser focus.

Both attribute their extraordinary success to laser focus, Alice Schroeder wrote in a biography of Buffett. Gates wrote that he learned from Buffett how to manage his time by prioritizing certain people and tasks.

Shortly after they first met, Gates said he asked Buffett for his favorite business book recommendation, and Buffett lent Gates his copy of “Business Adventures” by John Brooks.

Now it’s also Gates’ favorite business book, and he still has Buffett’s copy.

Union on causes.

They often joined forces for political and philanthropic causes.

In 2010, Gates and Buffett, along with Gates’ then-wife Melinda French Gates, started The Giving Pledge, which encourages billionaires to donate the majority of their wealth to charitable causes during their lifetimes or in their wills. To date, approximately $600 billion has been pledged.

Gates also credits Buffett with inspiring him to establish the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000.

Buffett contributed billions to Gates’ foundation.

Buffett gave some of his fortune, including Berkshire stock, to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

In 2006, he pledged to give 99% of his fortune to philanthropy and said the Gates Foundation would be the largest recipient of his donations in his lifetime.

Buffett’s contributions to Gates’ foundation from 2006 to 2023 total at least $39 billion, representing the appreciation of Berkshire’s stock over time, The New York Times reported.

They also advocated for policy change.

In 2014, Gates, Buffett, and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson published a New York Times op-ed advocating for immigration reform.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Buffett called Gates his “scientific advisor.” In February 2020, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $100 million to fight the pandemic.

During the pandemic, they spoke often.

Before the pandemic, they were spotted trying out mattresses in Buffett’s hometown, enjoying Dairy Queen and playing ping pong.

In July 2020, Yahoo’s Andy Serwer wrote that during the pandemic Warren and Gates were “talking more regularly”. Buffett told Serwer that the two men scheduled a weekly one-hour call, but usually went over the allotted time.

That same year, Gates resigned from his roles at Berkshire Hathaway and Microsoft. The billionaire said he wanted to “dedicate more time to philanthropic priorities.”

But things have evolved amid changes in Gates’s life.

Over the years, Buffett’s feelings toward Gates seemed to have cooled. The New York Times reported in August that Buffet had come to believe that the Gates Foundation had become bureaucratically bloated, hampering philanthropic productivity. He was disheartened to hear that some people found Gates rude.

Following the death of disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2019, news emerged that Gates met with Epstein repeatedly. Gates later said the meetings were for philanthropic purposes and were a “huge mistake.”

After that, things changed even more.

In 2021, Gates and his wife announced their divorce after 27 years of marriage. Shortly after, Buffett resigned from the three-person board of directors of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

“My goals are 100 percent in sync with those of the foundation, and my physical participation is in no way necessary to achieve those goals,” Buffett said at the time.

Buffett said his gifts to the foundation will not continue after he dies.

In a 2022 blog post, Gates said half of the Gates Foundation’s resources came from Buffett’s gifts.

However, Buffett, who is 93, recently said his 2006 commitment to the foundation would last only as long as he lives.

In 2023, he detailed plans for the distribution of the fortune after his death, leaving it to his three children to distribute it. Buffett did not mention the Gates Foundation, and The New York Times reported that his children unanimously agreed that none of the remaining Berkshire stock would go to the foundation.

Gates stopped posting as much about Buffett.

On his blog, Gates once wrote regularly about Buffett.

In 2018, he wrote about how the two friends visited a “fantastic” sweet shop in Ohama, where Buffett lives and works. In 2019, Gates wrote a post titled “Grilling and chilling with Warren.” In 2020, Gates wished Buffet a happy 90th birthday. It includes a photo of him holding a cake with Buffett’s face on it.

But the few posts in 2021 and 2022 that mention Buffett are strictly business. Instead of writing about the travels of dumb boys, Gates thanked Buffett for his generous contributions to the Gates Foundation. In 2023, Gates did not mention Buffett in a single post. And in his more than 20 posts so far in 2024, Gates has only mentioned Buffett once, again focusing solely on philanthropy.