Bill and Melinda Gates in 2019. – NEW CHINA / SIPA
Bad times for power couples technos. After Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos, Bill and Melinda Gates announced their divorce on Monday after 27 years of marriage. “After careful consideration and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage,” the Washington-resident couple tweeted in a joint statement.
– Bill Gates (@BillGates) May 3, 2021
The Microsoft co-founder married in 1994 the one who at the time was a marketing manager for the group – Bill Gates was 38 at the time and Melinda French 29. The Gates, who have three children, have announced that they will continue. to “work together within their foundation”, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which fights against poverty and disease, but which they “no longer thought they could grow together as a couple”. The couple have done a lot to eradicate malaria and promote vaccination against Covid-19.
Fourth richest person in the world
Bill Gates, 65, and his wife, 56, pleaded with the audience to give their families the “space and privacy” they need to “start adjusting to this new life.” They did not say anything about the reasons that prompted them to separate.
Bill Gates is, according to the latest Forbes ranking, the fourth richest man in the world, with a fortune estimated at $ 124 billion. It places him behind two other Americans, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and Frenchman Bernard Arnault, and ahead of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
If he made his fortune thanks to Microsoft, he resigned as president in 2014 and now devotes himself mainly to philanthropy. The foundation he created with his wife is considered the largest private foundation in the world. It has spent some $ 53 billion in 20 years and employs nearly 1,600 people, according to its official website.