Washington: Bill Gates, co-founder and former CEO of Microsoft, and his wife, Melinda Gates, announced in a joint statement that they were getting apart after 27 years of marriage.
“After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage,” the couple tweeted.
“Over the last 27 years, we have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works all over the world to enable all people to lead healthy, productive lives. We continue to share a belief in that mission and will continue our work together at the foundation, but we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives. We ask for space and privacy for our family as we begin to navigate this new life,” they wrote further.
— Bill Gates (@BillGates) May 3, 2021
According to reports, they first met in the 1980s when Melinda joined Bill’s Microsoft firm as product manager.
They got married in 1994 on the Hawaiian island of Lanai, reportedly hiring up all the local helicopters to stop unwanted guests flying over.
They have three children and jointly run the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation focuses primarily on public health, education and climate change. Its grants included some $ 1.75bn to vaccine initiatives and research during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2019, the foundation had net assets of more than $43bn Bill and Melinda Gates pumped more than $36bn into the foundation between 1994 and 2018.
Bill Gates is the fourth wealthiest person in the world, according to Forbes.
(With inputs from IANS)
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