BREAKING: Billionaire Warren Buffet quits Gates Foundation

The Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett, has announced his resignation as trustee at Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).

The popular billionaire made his resignation known in a statement released on Wednesday.

He however failed to give further details as to why he was resigning as a trustee at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

“For years I have been a trustee, an inactive trustee at that – of only one recipient of my funds, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

“I am now resigning from that post, just as I have done at all corporate boards other than Berkshire’s,” Buffet said in a statement.

The Gates Foundation has become one of the most powerful and influential forces in global public health which uses a business approach to combating poverty and disease.

In May, Bill and his wife Melinda, who are co-founders of the foundation, had announced their split after 27 years of marriage but pledged to continue their philanthropic work together.

Meanwhile, it is not clear if Buffet’s resignation is connected to the divorce announcement made by the couple as his resignation comes a few months after it was made public.

In June 2006, he announced a new plan to give 83% of it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).

Warren Buffett, left, Melinda French Gates and Bill Gates stand together, Sunday, June 25, 2006, in New York, shortly after Warren Buffett’s historic announcement.

He pledged about the equivalent of 10 million Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (worth approximately $30.7 billion as of June 23, 2006), making it the largest charitable donation in history. The foundation will receive 5% of the total each July, beginning in 2006. The pledge is conditional upon three requirements:

• Bill or Melinda Gates must be alive and active in BMGF
• BMGF must continue to qualify as a charity
• Each year BMGF must give away an amount equal to the prior year’s Berkshire gift plus the additional 5% of net assets as required of all US foundations