Bill Gates has promised to donate most of his wealth to charity. Now the Microsoft guru said he would also sell his assets to donate.
In an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit a few days ago, Gates answered several questions from Reddit users on a variety of topics. One Reddit user asked why Gates owns so much farmland in the United States.
"Isn't it contradictory to become a humanitarian and then gather the scarcest resources?" asked Reddit user u/fanthoshi.
The Reddit user refers to Gates, who has been buying up farmland for the past year. This bespectacled man owns approximately 275,000 acres of farmland in the US, according to the latest Land Report 100. As of 2021 there are 895.3 million acres of farmland in the US according to the US Department of Agriculture.
Gates replied that he actually owns only a fraction of the total farmland in the US. He also said there was no hidden plan behind the investment.
"I own less than 1/4,000 of the farmland in the US. I've invested in this land to make it more productive and create more jobs," Gates said, as quoted by Gizmodo, Saturday (1/14/2023).
"There is no grand scheme involved -- in fact, all of these policies are made by professional investment teams," he continued.
Gates then added that he had plans to sell the land he owned to donate it to the Bill & Melinda Gates charitable foundation which he founded with his ex-wife.
"Everything they own will be sold and the money transferred to the Foundation. Meanwhile, my investment group is trying to invest in productive assets including agricultural land even though it is less than 4% of the total," he explained.
In July 2022, Gates announced he would donate the majority of his fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation even though he would later be knocked off the list of the richest people in the world. Currently, the 67-year-old man is the seventh richest person in the world according to Forbes.