“This seems a little ‘supervillain’ crazy, even if they weren’t infected with malaria,” wrote one commenter.
“Malaria is business for him, so more affected more money,” another joked.
Bill Gates is known to be the richest man in the world.
But recently, the business tycoon admitted something which we didn’t expect to hear.
In a new interview with Forbes, Gates said he intends to follow the “give while he lives” principle.
Which he certainly has lived by, but now according to reports, he has vowed to give up his rich spot.
People do get sick of money, after all.
The American businessman has donated a whopping $20 billion to the Gates Foundation, as per LADbible.
And if you thought that’s pretty epic, it only gets better…
As Forbes has already noted his most recent donation.
And has taken away his title of being the top billionaire in the world.
And it’s made him “drop” from his number one spot to…
Fifth position, as per reports.
But that’s not all, his net worth of $102 billion is sitting outside the foundation.
Gates even spoke about the future of his billionaire-ness.
“I’ll get myself out of the highly visible part of the list with just say two more gifts of this magnitude. I would get myself off the top part of the list,” he said.
Can you believe it?
And he carried on revealing more secrets…
“Getting all the way off the list, that’s going to take me a while, but my direction of travel is clear,” Gates said.
But what does he mean by all this?
Is he really giving up his billionaire position that easily?
Well…
According to Forbes, the $20bn donation brings Bill and Melinda Gates’ lifetime giving amount to $55 billion.
And that still makes them the “biggest philanthropists of all time.”
But moving forward, Gates’ intentions are clear…
He wants to give away his top spot!
The pair plan to up the foundation spending by 50 percent, to $9bn a year, by 2026…
With a project spend between now and then of $41.4bn.
And looks like Gates is sticking to his words…
As this week, he’s donated a huge amount of money.
The Microsoft founder donated “close to $5.2 billion worth of stocks” in Canadian National Railway Co…
And last week, reports suggested that Gates “gave away $995 million worth of shares” in Deere & Co. to the foundation.
Now, this means he is worth approximately $112 billion…
According to LADbible, he is behind Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bernard Arnault and India’s Gautam Adani.
Talking about the big step, Gates said his plans to step off the World’s Richest list was going to “supercharge” all the work he does…
“This is going to supercharge or accelerate, charge, turbocharge basically all the work that we do,” Gates said.
But what’s more interesting is that Gates donated a hefty $6 billion this week.
It looks like the business mogul is desperate to give his spot away…
And now, it has been reported that Gates has been knocked off his spot to…
Number 5!
While Gates secured his fourth place comfortably…
It seems now that the billionaire has been pushed out the way by another businessman.
Just last week, Indian tycoon Gautam Adani’s net worth soared…
To a mega $112.5 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Adani reportedly reached the number 4 spot as a billionaire industrialist and Philanthropist…
This lead “integrated business conglomerate” to enrich lives, create substantial value and empower India” through a popular campaign #GrowthWithGoodness.
Adani also “aligned his actions with the agendas of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi” who has notably built support through this home-grown campaign.
Not only that, Adani’s business has extended outside of India too…
With the billionaire businessman who “signed a pact with Posco – a steel producer in South Korea” as well as displaying an interest in “buying a stake in Saudi Arabian public petroleum” and natural gas company Saudi Aramco.
Nonetheless, the tycoon expressed his desire to also invest “in green energy by 2030.”
According to reports, he would like to “invest $70 billion” across the green energy value chain, as previously he’s faced harsh criticism from environmentalists for “investing in Australia’s Carmichael coal mine project,” who branded him as a “climate criminal.”
But coming back to Gates…
His ridiculous fortune is falling and currently sits at $112 billion…
Whereas Musk remains in pole position with approximately $242 billion and Bezos shortly follows behind him in second position with $146 billion.
While people have been questioning Gates for his rather surprising move to get off the list in the near future…
The billionaire revealed he has no interest in staying in the top 10.
“I have an obligation to return my resources to society in ways that have the greatest impact for reducing suffering and improving lives.
“And I hope others in positions of great wealth and privilege will step up in this moment too,” he tweeted recently.
And one of the causes near to Bill’s heart is fighting malaria.
He believes that although the disease predominantly affects the developing world, it’s something the entire population should care about.
The disease currently kills two people every minute in Africa.
But it’s underresearched and little is being done to help.
So, to make people care, Bill decided to release mosquitos into the audience at a recent talk.
Although these mosquitos weren’t malaria infected – but it’s still likely the audience was not best pleased!