The chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett, has resigned as a trustee of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on Wednesday.
He handed his resignation weeks after the popular couple announced their divorce.
Mr. Buffett is a longtime friend of Bill Gates. He had been a huge presence at the Gates Foundation.
It is one of five nonprofit organizations to which Warren has pledged the majority of his fortune (estimated at $105.3 billion), according to Forbes. It is also the only nonprofit organization that is not run by a member of the Buffett family.
Mr. Buffett who is 90 years old has reportedly donated $41 billion worth of Berkshire stock to the five foundations. He has also donated an additional $4.1 billion, he said in Wednesday’s announcement.
“For years I have been a trustee — an inactive trustee at that — of only one recipient of my funds, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMG). I am now resigning from that post, just as I have done at all corporate boards other than Berkshire’s.” Mr. Buffett said in a statement.
Mr. Buffett did not provide us with a reason for his action.
Mr. Buffett also acknowledged the recent debate over how little in income tax American billionaires — including himself — pay in Wednesday’s statement.
Mr. Buffett who remains a a longtime advocate of tightening tax rules for the wealth, said on Wednesday that although tax deductions were important to some wealthy donors, “it is fitting that Congress periodically revisits the tax policy for charitable contributions, particularly in respect to donors who get imaginative.”
