As much as Bill and Melinda Gates might want to keep their pending divorce private, the split between the billionaire co-founders of the world’s largest private foundation is sure to have very public consequences, with the breakup having already sent a wave of anxious uncertainty through the worlds of philanthropy and community health.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with an endowment of nearly billion, donates about billion annually to causes around the world. Last year, it donated billion to combat COVID-19 through the administering of vaccines.

In a statement after the Gates’ announced their divorce the foundation said that “they will continue to work together to shape and approve foundation strategies, advocate for the foundation’s issues and set the organization’s overall direction”

Despite such assurances, some say they worry that the split could shake up the foundation’s plans. According to the divorce filing in King County Superior Court, the Gateses had no prenuptial agreement but have signed a separation contract.

The couple pledged in 2010 to donate the vast bulk of their fortune — estimated by Forbes at around 3 billion — to the foundation. Divorce attorneys say the committed money would no longer be considered marital property. Yet it remains unclear how the divorce might affect future donations to the foundation.

Through their philanthropic efforts, the Gateses reshaped attitudes about the obligation of the uber-wealthy to leverage their vast fortunes for the public good in enduring ways. Years ago, they created the Giving Pledge, along with Warren Buffett, to persuade their fellow multi-billionaires to commit to give away the majority of their wealth.

When the British hedge fund billionaire Chris Hohn and his wife, Jamie Cooper, divorced in 2013, the breakup also triggered a prolonged legal fight over whether another member of the fund should vote to approve a 0 million grant to a new charity founded by Cooper. 

When a divorce like this happens, it can really emphasize the volatility surrounding private giving and the fact that private giving is so contingent on the whims of a couple,” said one expert on charity organisations.

“The fact that we don’t really know the long term ramifications of this divorce on the foundation just highlights the fact that we are too reliant as a society on the whims of wealthy people when it comes to voluntarily distributing their excess wealth.”

At the same time, some experts note that for years the Gateses, who were married in Hawaii on New Year's Day 1994, have each pursued their own interests within the foundation as well as their own separate investment funds. Since 2008, Bill Gates has had Gates Ventures. And, in 2015, Melinda Gates founded Pivotal Ventures, which focuses on helping women and families in the United States.

In a sense, some say they’ve decoupled already.

One definite change, though, is that when Bill and Melinda Gates tackled an issue together as philanthropy’s ultimate power couple people naturally paid it significant attention. 

A dominant player in development and global health, the foundation wields outsize influence as the largest private donor to the World Health Organization.

That’s why recent comments from Bill Gates about protecting intellectual rights for coronavirus vaccine manufacturers upset some global health experts. Gates has come out against sharing the intellectual patents for the COVID-19 vaccines, arguing that the manufacturing process for the shots needs scrutiny. Some critics faulted his sentiments as favoring profits over supply.

Because the foundation has been a long-established entity with a large professional staff, experts say any changes that might happen because of the divorce would likely be incremental and happen over an extended period.

It is likely that questions will circulate for a long time ahead about how the divorce might affect the couple’s pledge to donate a majority of their wealth to the foundation they co-founded together.

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