Bill Gates repeats pledge to give away 'virtually all' of fortune, though his net worth has doubled since he first said it

pcgamer.com:

Bill Gates has renewed his pledge to give the «vast majority» of his wealth away, which comes in the immediate context of his giving another $20 billion to the Gates Foundation. The wider picture, however, is that since 2010 when he first began The Giving Pledge(opens in new tab) campaign, Gates' net worth has more than doubled. Then he was worth around $53 billion, but now it's closer to $118 billion according to Forbes magazine.

Gates is currently the world's fourth-richest man, even if he'll be down to his last $98 billion after this (from roughly 1995 to 2017 he mostly held the top spot). His fortune was of course built as the co-founder and key figure in the rise of Microsoft to the position of prominence it still holds in the world of computing today. 

He took to Twitter, in somewhat philosophical mood, to talk about current global circumstances and his future plans.

«Several huge global setbacks over the past few years have left many people discouraged and wondering whether the world is destined to get worse,» writes Gates, before going on to outline some of them: war in Ukraine, the pandemic, climate change, and the recent supreme court ruling on Roe vs. Wade.

«But I’m still optimistic,» Gates continues. «These setbacks are happening in the context of two decades’ worth of historic progress and I believe it is possible to mitigate the damage and get back to the progress the world was making.»

Gates goes on to say the Foundation plans to increase spending from the current $6 billion a year to $9 billion a year by 2026, which is why he's transferring a further $20 billion to its endowment this month.

With the support and guidance of our board, we plan to increase our spending from nearly $6 billion per year today