Buffett credits luck as he redirects annual giving away from Gates Foundation

Warren Buffett is casting his career as a product of unusual good fortune as he reshapes one of the best-known giving programs in global philanthropy. In a CNBC interview published Wednesday, the Berkshire Hathaway chairman said chance helped define the path that made him one of the world’s richest people.

Buffett, whose net worth is about $147 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, told CNBC: “Out of eight billion people, I may be one of the 10 luckiest in the world.” The index ranks him as the world’s 10th-richest person.

CNBC reported that Buffett, who turns 96 next month, pointed to his long life and continued health as part of that luck. “I’m losing marbles at this point. I accumulated marbles for a longer time than I deserved,” he said. “That’s just a matter of luck.”

Buffett has made similar arguments before about how birth and circumstance shape outcomes. In a 2024 letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, he wrote that being born in the United States and being a white man gave him advantages, including early confidence that he would become wealthy.

He has also used the phrase “ovarian lottery,” including at a 1997 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting, to describe the role of birth circumstances in a person’s life. The point, as Buffett has framed it, is that effort and ambition matter, but they do not operate in a vacuum.

CNBC reported that Buffett tied his own start in investing to family circumstance. His father, Howard Homan Buffett, was a stockbroker who exposed him to markets early, and Buffett bought his first stock at age 11: three shares of Cities Service at $38 each.

“Fortunately I got exposed, partly accidentally, to what I liked to do very early on, and that was just an accident,” Buffett told CNBC. “If my father had been a plumber, I would not have.”

Gates Foundation left out of annual gifts

Buffett’s comments came as he announced the beneficiaries of his 2026 annual stock gifts. The Gates Foundation, long the largest recipient of his philanthropy, was not included.

Since 2006, Buffett has donated more than $47 billion to the foundation started by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, according to Fortune. In 2010, Buffett signed the Giving Pledge, committing to give 99% of his net worth to causes tied to the “health and welfare of others.”

For this year’s stock gifts, Buffett is sending 9 million Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named for his late first wife. The Sherwood Foundation, Howard G. Buffett Foundation and NoVo Foundation will each receive 1 million Class B shares, according to the announcement cited by Fortune.

Buffett told CNBC he informed Gates about three weeks ago that he would not make further gifts to the Gates Foundation. The decision followed a Wall Street Journal report last month that Buffett had paused his annual gift while reviewing Gates’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and sex offender.

Buffett told CNBC that Gates had made mistakes but said he did not find anything that exceeded what he could imagine himself doing. “No one bats a thousand in the business of choosing people,” Buffett said.

Buffett had already said in 2024 that donations to the Gates Foundation would stop after his death so his children could decide how to distribute the rest of his fortune. Last week, he said he now wants the wealth distributed within eight years, writing in a press release that he hopes his three children can dispose of his shares by Dec. 31, 2034.

Berkshire’s leadership has also changed. Fortune reported that Buffett stepped down as Berkshire Hathaway chief executive late last year while remaining involved, with Vice Chairman Greg Abel chosen as his successor.

This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.