While many of the world’s wealthiest people make an effort to share their fortunes, some do not—at least to the extent more generous peers wish they would.
Abigail Disney, one of the heiresses to the Walt Disney fortune who said in 2019 she’s worth about $120 million, shared her feelings about how much of their wealth billionaires should be willing to share.
“I am of the belief that every billionaire who can’t live on $999 million is kind of a sociopath,” Disney told the Guardian in an interview published in April. “Like, why? You know, over a billion dollars makes money so fast that it’s almost impossible to get rid of.”
Disney has begrudgingly disclosed her net worth in the past only to make a point about how important it is to her to give away the vast fortune bestowed upon her by being a part of one of the major family dynasties in the U.S. The Financial Times even called her a “class warrior” for how vocal she’s been about how much the wealthiest should be taxed.
“The need to tax rich people like me has never been so dire,” Disney wrote in a 2024 op-ed titled, “World leaders have a chance to raise taxes for rich people like me. I’m begging them to take it,” published by the Guardian. “Extreme wealth concentration in the hands of a few oligarchs is a threat to democracy the world over.”
Disney was also behind a 2019 letter signed by financier George Soros and Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes calling for a “moderate wealth tax on the fortunes of the richest one-tenth of the richest 1% of Americans—on us.”
The Disney heiress and filmmaker in 1991 also founded the Daphne Foundation, a New York City–based nonprofit that invests funds for causes like fighting poverty, violence, and discrimination. The organization had donated about $70 million as of 2019.
Although Disney has said she’d given away about a third of her net worth, it came “back to me as quickly as I’ve given it away,” referencing how investments can grow wealth.
“By just sitting on your hands, you become more of a billionaire until you’re a double billionaire,” Disney told the Guardian. “It’s a strange way to live when you have objectively more money than a person can spend.”
Billionaires who have given away their wealth
Other ultrawealthy people have been giving vast amounts of their fortunes away. One prime example is MacKenzie Scott, who’s donated more than $19 billion of her $34.3 billion fortune. In September, she made one of her largest gifts: a $70 million donation to historically Black colleges and universities. The five-year donation spree by the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has been “transformational” for nonprofits, according to a study by the Center for Effective Philanthropy.
“It could take decades to truly understand the effects these gifts have had on nonprofits and the sector at large,” according to the report. “However, after five years of giving, the reported effects of her gifts on recipient organizations…remain overwhelmingly positive.”
Bill and Melinda French Gates have also been major philanthropists, have given away more than $100 billion since founding the Gates Foundation in 2000.
“I believe that people who are financially successful have a responsibility to give back to society,” Bill Gates wrote on his blog Gates Notes. “In the 1990s, as Microsoft became successful, I decided I would eventually give away virtually all of my wealth. The goal of my philanthropy is to reduce inequity.”
Although French Gates resigned from the Gates Foundation in 2024, she put out an open call for nonprofits related to the betterment of women and girls to apply for grants through her organization, Pivotal, pledging to donate $1 billion during the next two years. French Gates’ net worth is about $16.8 billion, according to Bloomberg.
By “using my own personal resources to put substantial investments behind women or minorities,” she told NPR in October 2024, “I am pointing in a direction, I hope, for other philanthropists or even other governments.” Fortune reported in May The Gates Foundation will end in 2045.
And Warren Buffett, the sixth-richest man in the world with a $155 billion net worth, also pledged in 2010 to give away more than 99% of his wealth to philanthropy during his lifetime or at his death. In June, Buffett donated another $6 billion in Berkshire Hathaway shares—with the lion’s share going to the Gates Foundation.
“Measured by dollars, this commitment is large. In a comparative sense, though, many individuals give more to others every day,” Buffett wrote. “In contrast, my family and I will give up nothing we need or want by fulfilling this 99% pledge.”
A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com on April 7, 2024.
