One of the richest couples in the world announced Monday, May 3, that they were getting a divorce after 27 years of marriage.
Co-founder of Microsoft Bill Gates and Co-chair with ex wife Melinda of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced Monday on twitter that they were getting divorced. “After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage,” they said in a joint statement posted by each on their Twitter feed. “Over the last 27 years, we have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works 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.”
At this time it is unclear how the couple is going to split their nearly 147 billion dollar net worth. What is known at this time is that there is no prenup between the two of them, but there was a separation contract. The details of that contract are still unclear.
In court filings obtained by TMZ it shows Melinda filed for divorce against husband Bill Gates calling the marriage “inntreibly broken”. In the court filings it shows that they were separated before the divorce and she is not asking for any spousal support.
The couple owned several homes together with one of them being nicknamed Xandu 2.0, with over 66,000 square feet compound and valued at more than 127 million dollars. They also purchased an 18 million-dollar horse farm with 299 acres in 2019.
Bill Gates stepped down in 2019 from Microsoft to focus on their philanthropist foundation alongside wife at the time Melinda. When the divorce was announced on Twitter the main concern was: what about the foundation? Experts say the foundation has over 52 billion dollars in assets, and that the foundation is bigger than both of them and its not going anywhere.
The two met in 1987 when Melinda started working at Microsoft as a product manager. The couple were married in 1994 in Hawaii. The two had three kids all 18 or older. Named Jennifer (25) Rory (21) and Phoebe (18). Another question was: will the majority of their earnings be donated? The way it stands now is each kid will only get 10 million dollars in an inheritance, which comes out to 1% of their parents net worth.
