Bill Gates’ charitable foundation, Gates Foundation Trust holds hundreds of millions of dollars in fossil fuel extractors, said Guardian. The trust invested $254m in companies that extract fossil fuels such as Chevron, BP and Shell, according to end-of-year filings as quoted in the report. The investment marked a nine year high and was 21% up compared to the year 2016. After adjusting inflation, the amount is the highest since 2019, the analysis showed. These investments, the report claims, comes despite Bill Gates’ claims of divestment made in 2019.Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, was ranked by Forbes as the world’s richest person for the period between 1995 and 2017. In 2000, he and his then wife Melinda Gates established the Gates Foundation, which is now the world’s third-largest charitable foundation. Questions around divestment first emerged for Gates in 2015, when a global campaign led by religious leaders, climate activists, students and charities urged large foundations to pull their money out of fossil fuel companies. That same year, calls were made for major trusts, including the Gates Foundation Trust, to move away from investments in coal, oil and gas companies whose business models depend on extracting fuels that cannot be safely burned. According to the report, Gates Foundation Trust was heavily invested in fossil fuels, to the tune of $1.4 billion in 2013.

What Bill Gates said

In a book titled ‘How to Avoid a Climate Disaster’ that Gates wrote in 2021, the tech billionaire said “I understood why the Guardian had singled out our foundation and me. I also admired the activists’ passion”. Skeptical of divestment, Gates said he did not see how “divesting alone would stop climate change or help people in poor countries”.Despite Gates’ skepticism, the trust shifted its position and sold much of its fossil fuel stocks and bonds, including most of its $187 million stock holding in BP and a $824 million holding in ExxonMobil. The trust’s foldings dropped from $1.4 billion in 2023 to $260 million in 2015, a Guardian analysis found.

What changed after 2015

As per the report, Gates called for more government investment in carbon-free energy sources in a 2015 paper. But, Gates Foundation Trust’s investment in several fossil fuel companies has increased. Its Glencore holdings increased from $5.7 million in 2015 to $14.1 million in 2024, the report says, adding its BP holdings increased from $8.7 million to $24.2 million, and its Occidental Petroleum holdings rose from $23,529 to $7.9 million, among others.