Bill And Melinda Gates To Divorce After 27 Years Of Marriage

Bill and Melinda Gates have announced their decision to divorce after 27 years of marriage but will continue to work together at their namesake philanthropic foundation, a development that shocked the world of philanthropy.

Bill, the billionaire founder of Microsoft, and Melinda, an author and businesswoman, announced their decision to separate on Monday in an identical statement posted on their verified Twitter accounts.

“After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage,” the statement reads.

The couple founded their philanthropic organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, together in 2000. Since then, the foundation has spent $53.8 billion (Ksh.5.7 trillion) on a wide range of initiatives related to global health, poverty alleviation, and more, according to its website.

The couple has three children, Jennifer, 25, Rory, 21, and Phoebe, 18. Jennifer Gates, writing on Instagram on Monday, said it had been a challenging stretch of time for our whole family.

“We have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works all over the world to enable all people to lead healthy, productive lives,” the statement says. “We continue to share a belief in that mission and will continue our work together at the foundation, but we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives.”

Melinda, 56, has in the past said their marriage has been “incredibly hard”, saying that Bill, 65, constantly works 16-hour days and can find it hard to make time for the family.

Melinda Gates filed a petition for divorce in King County, Washington, on Monday, asking a judge to dissolve the marriage based on the couple’s separation contract. No financial details were included in the publicly available documents.

Bill, who co-founded Microsoft in 1975, was already a billionaire when the pair got married in 1994. He met Melinda in 1987 when she joined the company. He was 31

Melinda said Bill spent weeks debating whether they should marry, and even made a list of pros and cons for marriage on a whiteboard.

Bill Gates is one of the richest people in the world. His net worth was $137 billion as of February, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index ranking

She described the encounter in her book, “The Moment of Lift:” “I showed up late, and all the tables were filled except one, which still had two empty chairs side by side. I sat in one of them. A few minutes later, Bill arrived and sat in the other.”

The Gates’ is the second high-profile divorce among tech’s ultra-wealthy in recent years. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie Scott, separated in 2019 after 25 years of marriage.

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