If you look here:
https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/
Bill Gates is only the 5th richest.
…but the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has an endowment total of $75.2 billion.
So, his wealth ($149 billion) + foundation ($75 billion) = $224 billion.
So, my question is…can he spend that foundation money any way he wants instead of spending his personal money? If he wants a jet can he just use the foundation money? If so, then he is still the richest person in the world even though he does not get labeled as such in the news anymore.
The smokescreen thing just doesn’t make any sense though. Up to 2020 he had contributed ~$50b to philanthropic endeavours, and then a few years ago “pledged” to contribute another $110b.
This is the vast majority of his wealth and the very reason he’s moving down the list of wealthy people. Maybe he won’t make good on his pledge, but he appears to be doing exactly that.
The only evidence that this is a “smokescreen” is that these contributions make him look good.
There’s no evidence that he’s hoarding a gigantic pile of money in comparisson to the amounts he’s contributing. There’s plenty of other billionaires who aren’t doing anything at all.
My point is, if we’re looking around for billionaires to hate because they’re hoarding money and not helping why are we so fixated on the one who actually is contributing most of his money to these causes?