Bill Gates’s 2025 pledge of about $200 billion tops every other gift or pledge on record, ahead of Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan’s $45 billion and Warren Buffett’s $31 billion. Ranked in US dollars as announced, not adjusted for inflation.
Pictured: Associated Press coverage of Bill Gates’s 2025 pledge to the Gates Foundation, #1 with about $200 billion.
Rank
Donor
Amount (US$, as announced)
Year announced
Recipient / vehicle
Type
Country
1
Bill Gates
$200 billion
2025
Gates Foundation (to spend out by 2045)
Pledge
USA
2
Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla Chan
$45 billion
2015
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (99% of their Facebook shares)
Pledge
USA
3
Warren Buffett
$31 billion
2006
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Berkshire Hathaway stock)
Pledge
USA
4
Bill Gates
$20 billion
2022
Gates Foundation endowment
Transfer to own foundation
USA
5
George Soros
$18 billion
2017
Open Society Foundations
Transfer to own foundation
USA
6
Jeff Bezos
$10 billion
2020
Bezos Earth Fund (climate and nature grants)
Pledge
USA
7
Azim Premji
$7.5 billion
2019
Azim Premji Foundation endowment (Wipro shares)
Transfer to own foundation
India
8
Michael & Susan Dell
$6.25 billion
2025
“Trump Accounts” for about 25 million children ($250 each)
Pledge
USA
9
Bill & Melinda Gates
$6 billion
1999
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Transfer to own foundation
USA
10
Bill & Melinda Gates
$5 billion
2000
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Microsoft stock)
Transfer to own foundation
USA
11
Phil & Penny Knight
$2 billion
2025
OHSU Knight Cancer Institute
Pledge
USA
12
Michael Bloomberg
$1.8 billion
2018
Johns Hopkins University (financial aid)
Gift
USA
13
Joan Kroc
$1.5 billion
2004
The Salvation Army (bequest)
Gift
USA
No matching rows.
How to read this ranking.The rule: one row per single, publicly announced gift or pledge by a donor to a named charity, foundation or institution, in US dollars as announced (nominal, not adjusted for inflation; the year is shown, so a 1999 dollar is not a 2025 dollar).[1] Pledges and completed gifts both count, and the Type column says which: Pledge is a commitment paid out over time, Transfer to own foundation is assets handed to a foundation the donor controls, and Gift is money given to an independent recipient. Repeat giving: each announced pledge or gift is one row, never a lifetime total. Warren Buffett’s yearly Gates Foundation stock gifts are installments of his 2006 pledge, so they are not extra rows; Michael Bloomberg’s billions a year through Bloomberg Philanthropies, and MacKenzie Scott’s many separate gifts, are cumulative and left out, and only his single announced $1.8 billion Johns Hopkins gift qualifies. Gifts with no named recipient (such as Elon Musk’s $5.7 billion in Tesla shares in 2021, which an SEC filing did not attribute) are excluded, as are older gifts such as Carnegie’s or Rockefeller’s, whose nominal dollars would mislead. Amounts are the values reported when announced; stock-based pledges have since moved, and Gates’s $200 billion is an estimate. Rows 11 to 13 (Knight, Bloomberg, Kroc) are sourced in notes 12 to 14.[12][13][14] The list is not exhaustive: it holds the largest rows we could confirm with at least two outlets.
The Top 10
#1
Bill Gates — about $200 billion (2025)
On May 8, 2025, Gates said he would give 99% of his remaining fortune to the Gates Foundation, which will close on December 31, 2045.[2] The foundation expects to spend roughly $200 billion by then, the largest amount a private foundation has set out to give away; that figure is an estimate that depends on markets and inflation, and the foundation had already given more than $100 billion since 2000.[2] Because the pledge is open-ended, it is the least precise number in this ranking.[2]
#2
Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla Chan — $45 billion (2015)
On December 1, 2015, in an open letter to their newborn daughter, Zuckerberg and Chan pledged 99% of their Facebook shares, worth about $45 billion, over their lifetimes.[3] The money goes to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, set up as a limited liability company rather than a nonprofit, so it can invest and lobby as well as give grants; this is why some outlets first called it “not a charity.”[3] A securities filing said Zuckerberg planned to sell or give away no more than $1 billion of stock a year for the next three years.[3]
#3
Warren Buffett — $31 billion (2006)
On June 26, 2006, Buffett signed letters at the New York Public Library pledging about $37 billion in Berkshire Hathaway stock to five foundations; $31 billion was for the Gates Foundation and $6 billion for four foundations run by his family members.[4] The value was set at Berkshire’s June 23, 2006 closing price. This table counts only the Gates Foundation portion, as one row; the yearly stock gifts that have paid it out since are installments of this same pledge, not new rows.[4] Reports give the Gates share as $31 billion or $30.7 billion.[4]
#4
Bill Gates — $20 billion (2022)
On July 13, 2022, Gates announced he was giving $20 billion to the Gates Foundation, the largest gift he had made at that point.[5] It funded a plan to raise the foundation’s annual spending from nearly $6 billion to $9 billion by 2026, and lifted its endowment to about $70 billion.[5] In the same announcement he said he planned to give away virtually all his wealth.[5] It is counted separately from the 2025 pledge because it was a distinct announced transfer.
#5
George Soros — $18 billion (2017)
In October 2017 news broke that Soros had moved about $18 billion, most of his fortune, into the Open Society Foundations.[6] His spokeswoman said it reflected “an ongoing process of asset transfer” under way for several years, so the date marks when it became public rather than a single day’s transfer.[6] It made Open Society the second-largest US philanthropic group by assets, behind the Gates Foundation.[6]
#6
Jeff Bezos — $10 billion (2020)
On February 17, 2020, Bezos announced on Instagram that he would commit $10 billion to start the Bezos Earth Fund, to back scientists, activists and non-governmental groups working to protect the natural world, with grants to begin that summer.[7] The pledge was about 8% of his roughly $130 billion net worth at the time.[7] The embedded video is the fund’s own channel announcing a $1 billion commitment to nature and people; the 2020 launch itself was an Instagram post, not a video.
#7
Azim Premji — $7.5 billion (2019)
In March 2019 the Wipro chairman committed another 34% of his Wipro shares, about $7.5 billion at the time, to the endowment that funds the Azim Premji Foundation, which works mainly on education in India.[8] That brought his total endowment to about $21 billion, including 67% of the economic ownership of Wipro.[8] Forbes ranked it first among the biggest gifts of 2019, per Indian press coverage.[8] It is the largest row here from outside the United States.
#8
Michael & Susan Dell — $6.25 billion (2025)
On December 2, 2025 (GivingTuesday), the Dells pledged $6.25 billion to put $250 into a “Trump Account” for about 25 million children, adding to the $1,000 the federal program deposits for children born in 2025–2028.[9] Accounts were not due to launch until July 4, 2026, and the Dells said they would target the money by ZIP code.[9] Reports differ on the exact age cutoff, so it is left out here, and the recipient is a government-created account scheme rather than a charity, which makes this the most debatable entry.[9]
#9
Bill & Melinda Gates — $6 billion (1999)
In August 1999, as the couple merged their two foundations into the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Chronicle of Philanthropy reported they added $6 billion, bringing it to $17.1 billion.[10] Guinness World Records lists the $6 billion as the largest single private charitable donation, though the figure was an upgrade of assets rather than one clean transfer.[10] No suitable official video was found, so this entry uses an illustration.
#10
Bill & Melinda Gates — $5 billion (2000)
On January 24, 2000, the Gateses gave the foundation $5 billion in Microsoft stock, raising its endowment to about $21.8 billion and making it the largest philanthropic trust in the United States.[11] The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported the same $21.8 billion total at the time.[11] No suitable official video was found, so this entry uses an illustration.
Soros 2017: Fox Business (Reuters); CBC News; RTÉ. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal broke the story; their articles were not opened directly.
