In the next two decades, the heirs of the world’s wealthiest are expected to become significantly richer. An estimated $84 trillion is expected to change hands by 2045 in what has been deemed the largest-ever transfer of intergenerational wealth—but not all billionaires are on board.
Some, like Laurene Powell Jobs, have decided against leaving their fortunes to their children. Powell Jobs, whose multibillion-dollar net worth primarily consists of Apple and The Walt Disney Company shares inherited from her late husband Steve Jobs, has previously stated that “it’s not right for individuals to accumulate a massive amount of wealth.” Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett, meanwhile, has designed his will so that his children will inherit a charitable trust that must be doled out within a decade instead of receiving a mass amount of funds.
Perhaps the most notable example of the anti-inheritance billionaire is Chuck Feeney, an acclaimed philanthropist who died in October 2023 with only $2 million, despite having once accumulated a net worth nearly $8 billion. Feeney, who made a fortune in the duty-free shopping business, gave the bulk of his money away for decades via his Atlantic Philanthropies foundations. “It is eccentric, but he sheltered us from people using the money to treat us differently,” said one of Feeney’s five children in a 2007 interview. “It made us normal people.”
Here’s a look at some of the world’s wealthiest individuals who have decided not to offer inheritances to their kids:
As the founder of Facebook, now Meta Platforms, much of Mark Zuckerberg’s $204.5 billion fortune is connected to his 13 percent ownership of his company’s stock. Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, however, intend to give 99 percent of their Meta shares away. Shortly after the birth of their first child in 2015, the couple announced their intentions to use the funds to promote equality, medical innovations and education through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which has committed more than $6.9 billion in grants since its establishment in 2015. “Our society has an obligation to invest now to improve the lives of all those coming into this world, not just those already here,” said Zuckerberg at the time.
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was set up as a limited liability corporation instead of a nonprofit foundation, meaning it is also able to lobby and make investments. Zuckerberg and Chan, who now have three children in total, have claimed that any investments made by the organization will be funneled back into its projects.
With an estimated $14.9 billion, Laurene Powell Jobs has a hefty fortune to dole out. But Powell Jobs, who inherited much of the funds from her late husband and Apple (AAPL) co-founder Steve Jobs, isn’t planning on giving them to her three children. “I’m not interested in legacy wealth buildings, and my children know that,” she told The New York Times in 2020. “Steve wasn’t interested in that. If I live long enough, it ends with me.”
In lieu of passing down her wealth to her kids, Powell Jobs instead intends to distribute her money “in ways that lift up individuals and communities in a sustainable way.” Much of this will likely take place through her umbrella organization Emerson Collective, which oversees her philanthropic giving towards causes including immigration, education and the environment.
Yvon Chouinard, the founder of the outdoor gear retailer Patagonia, was once a billionaire with a net worth of $1.2 billion—albeit a reluctant one. He gave up his ten-figure status in September 2022 when he decided to transfer his company to a trust and nonprofit dedicated to environmental causes. The majority of Patagonia is now owned by the nonprofit Holdfast Collective, which will give $100 million annually to combat climate change.
Chouinard’s two kids played a role in deciding the outcome of their father’s vast fortune. Although the Patagonia founder considered leaving his company to his heirs, the children themselves said they didn’t want it. “It was important to them that they were not seen as the financial beneficiaries,” Ryan Gellert, CEO of Patagonia, told the New York Times in 2022. “They really embody this notion that every billionaire is a policy failure.”
Michael Bloomberg is the founder of Bloomberg L.P., an empire that constitutes his eponymous media businesses and the Bloomberg Terminal, a financial data service. Despite having amassed a fortune of $104.7 billion, he doesn’t intend to pass on this wealth to his two children. Instead, he announced last year that his company will eventually be given to a trust intended to finance Bloomberg Philanthropies, his charitable foundation.
“When I die, the foundation inherits the company,” said Bloomberg during a summit in September 2023. “They, because of the tax laws, will have to get rid of it, sell it someplace or other over the first five years,” he added. The billionaire has also previously advocated against wealthy families hiring their own children, stating in 2016 that he would never let his daughters work for his company as it would be unfair to other employees.
While he’s given away most of his Microsoft (MSFT) stakes to fund his philanthropic Gates Foundation, Bill Gates still has an estimated $105.3 billion. But his three children shouldn’t expect to receive much of it. The billionaire has long maintained that his kids won’t be receiving his vast fortune, stating in 2011 that they will be given a “miniscule portion” of his wealth and will “have to find their own way.”
In a 2017 Reddit AMA, Gates reportedly noted that “leaving kids massive amounts of money is not a favor to them” and revealed he became inspired to not leave an inheritance to his children after reading about Warren Buffett’s thoughts on the topic in a 1986 Fortune article. Alongside Buffett and his former wife Melinda French Gates, the Microsoft co-founder helped establish the Giving Pledge in 2010, a campaign urging the wealthy to give away the majority of their wealth during their lifetime.
In the 1980s interview admired by Gates, Buffett declared that his three kids are “going to carve their own place in the world.” Passing down mass amounts of money “just because they came out of the right womb” is an “antisocial act,” said the Berkshire Hathaway founder, who has an estimated net worth of $142.5 billion. Buffett has maintained this stance in the decades since, recommending in 2021 that ultra-wealthy families “leave the children enough so that they can do anything but not enough that they can do nothing.”
While Buffett may not be interested in giving his kids an inheritance, he has offered them funds in different ways. In 2006, the billionaire pledged to give all his Berkshire Hathaway shares to charity, including towards several family foundations run by his kids. Earlier this year, he revealed plans to transfer his fortune to a charitable trust upon his death that will be overseen by his children, who must unanimously agree on where to donate the money within a ten-year timeframe.
