Warren Buffett is accelerating his charitable giving with the goal of giving away Berkshire’s wealth by 2034.

(This is a special edition of the best Warren Buffett Watch newsletter, news and analysis of all things Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. You can subscribe here to receive it every Friday evening in your inbox.)

• SETS HIMSELF A GOAL TO ‘LOSE ALL’ HER EYELASHES IN EIGHT YEARS
• GIVES $6B TO FOUNDATIONS FOR FOUR FAMILIES
• GATES FOUNDATION IS INVOLVED
• BUFFETT ON CNBC’S ‘TRUTH’ IN THE MORNING

Warren Buffett is accelerating the pace of his annual donations of Berkshire Hathaway shares to four family foundations, giving them a total of nearly $6 billion now.

In a press conference this morning, Buffett says, “My goal is to dispose of all my Berkshire shares within eight years.”

CNBC Companies Becky Quick is sitting down with Buffett in Omaha and we’ll bring you that interview starting at 6 am ET tomorrow (Wednesday) on “Squawk Box.”

Buffett, who will be celebrating his 96th birthday next month, now owns the company with a market value of more than $140 billion.

Even without taking into account the potential increase in Berkshire’s stock price, that means gifts of at least $17 billion each year, more than double the $7 billion in stock he gave away last year.

In the release, Buffett says, “Yes, death is unpredictable, but my remaining shares will be donated to four foundations in one way or another on December 31, 2034.”

That excludes the Gates Foundation from any other donations, ending what Buffett said in 2006 would be a “lifetime commitment” of annual gifts to the charity founded by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his then-wife, Melinda Gates.

Based on the plan he put in place at the time when the stock price fell by 5% each year, he should have donated nearly $4.5 billion to the Gates Foundation this month.

Last year at this time, Buffett gave the family’s four foundations a total of $1.4 billion in gifts, so it appears that this year they also received a donation earmarked for the Gates group.

In this round, Buffett is giving the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named after his late first wife, 9 million Class B shares with a current value of about $4.5 billion.

Three foundations run by his children, Susie Buffett’s Sherwood Foundation, Howard G. Buffett Foundation, and Peter Buffett’s NoVo Foundation, will each receive 1 Class B shares worth just under $500 million.

The release doesn’t mean he’ll be making gifts to family foundations again at Thanksgiving like he did four years ago, but it seems he’s been given a new eight-year goal.

Last year those donations totaled nearly $1.3 billion.

Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Buffett was holding off on his planned donation to the Gates Foundation pending a law firm review of the charity’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the results of which are expected this summer.

In 2006, Buffett said he was “irrevocably committed to making annual gifts of Berkshire Hathaway ‘B’ shares for the rest of my life” to benefit the Gates Foundation as long as Bill or Melinda Gates “are alive and working [its] policy setting and management.”

But cracks in what had been a strong friendship with Bill Gates began to appear in 2021, when Buffett resigned as a foundation trustee two months after Bill and Melinda announced that they had decided to end their 27-year marriage.

By 2024, Buffett told the journal, “The Gates Foundation has no income coming after my death,” following a revision of his will that made his three children trustees of the charity that will hold “99%-plus” of his fortune.

This year, revelations in Jeffrey Epstein’s files about the connection of a known pedophile to Gates put a serious strain on Buffett’s relationship with the Microsoft founder.

In March, Buffett said CNBC he hasn’t spoken to Gates “since this whole thing was revealed” and “until it’s cleared up … I just don’t think it makes sense to talk too much.”

Asked if he would continue to give the Gates Foundation money, Buffett replied, “I’ll wait and see what happens … I don’t have to make that decision today. And I haven’t made it today.”

“I learned things that I didn’t know about all these years.”

Over the past two decades, Buffett’s Gates Foundation gifts have totaled nearly $48 billion, based on the number of shares when they were donated.

The current value of the nearly 321 million shares donated to charity is estimated at $159 billion.

It has sold most of them over the years to help finance its operations.

Please send any questions or comments about this book to alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (Sorry, but we don’t send questions or comments to Buffett himself.)

If you haven’t subscribed to this newsletter, you can sign up here.

Also, Buffett’s annual letters to shareholders are highly recommended reading. There is a collection here on the Berkshire website.

— Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch