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Key Takeaways Warren Buffett recently doubled down on the Giving Pledge, calling it “quite a success” and saying he still quietly recruits members.
The initiative faces a growing “billionaire backlash,” including a campaign by Peter Thiel, who said that most signatories he has spoken to regret joining.
The broader tension is over how billionaires should do good: through large philanthropy or through business-building.
Warren Buffett is making a rare public statement to reassert his allegiance to the Giving Pledge, a commitment made by the world’s wealthiest philanthropists to give the majority of their wealth to charitable organizations throughout their lifetime or in their wills. The Pledge, however, is now facing a “billionaire backlash,” according to The New York Times.
Buffett wants people to know that the Giving Pledge is working as intended, even as it faces attacks.
“I firmly believe in the Giving Pledge and consider it quite a success, though my physical limitations have eliminated my participation in the annual get-together,” the billionaire wrote in a recent email to The Times. “I have continued to contact possible members but only on a minor scale in recent years.”
Philanthropist Warren Buffett. (Photo by Daniel Zuchnik/WireImage)
Buffett created the Giving Pledge in 2010 with Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, and credits the Pledge with establishing a new philanthropic norm among the ultra-rich. The philanthropic billionaire pledged to donate over 99% of his wealth to philanthropy during his lifetime or at death.
Pushback against the Pledge
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