- The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation sold all of its shares in Apple and Twitter earlier this year.
- In early May, Bill and Melinda Gates announced plans to divorce.
- The shares were sold for hundreds of millions of dollars by the Gates Foundation trust.
- Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.
Just weeks before Bill and Melinda Gates announced their divorce, the foundation bearing their names sold off hundreds of millions of dollars of stock in Apple and Twitter.
Securities and Exchange Commission filings from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, first reported by Barron’s, reveal that the foundation’s trust sold its entire stake in both Apple and Twitter earlier this year.
As of March 30, the foundation trust had liquidated all its shares in Apple and Twitter — to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Since announcing their divorce in early May, approximately $4 billion in stock has been transferred from Bill to Melinda. Bill Gates is one of the world’s richest people, with a net worth of about $146 billion.
Bill and Melinda reportedly don’t have a prenuptial agreement, and are instead relying on a “separation contract” to divide assets. Unlike a prenuptial agreement, which establishes a contractual agreement in the event of divorce, a separation contract is less formal — it’s a legal agreement that stipulates rights and obligations of each party, like child support and custody, that doesn’t involve a court.
In their divorce filing, the Gateses said their marriage is “irretrievably broken” and asked that their assets be split according to the separation contract.
Got a tip? Contact Insider senior correspondent Ben Gilbert via email (bgilbert@insider.com), or Twitter DM (@realbengilbert). We can keep sources anonymous. Use a non-work device to reach out. PR pitches by email only, please.
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