French Gates will get that vast sum directly from her ex-husband, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, after leaving the Gates Foundation next month. It's still not clear when or in what form she'll receive those billions, and representatives for French Gates declined to elaborate.
After her divorce from Jeff Bezos in 2019, MacKenzie Scott changed the game of billionaire philanthropy, writing huge checks to small charities at a breakneck pace from her newly independent US$36 billion ($48.47 billion) fortune.
Now, the philanthropy world is hoping for another seismic shift from Melinda French Gates, who's armed with US$12.5 billion to deploy for her own charity work independent of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
