Bill & Melinda Gates Officially Divorced, Melinda Could Reportedly Get $65 Billion
Bill & Melinda Gates Officially Divorced, Melinda Could Reportedly Get $65 Billion
Bill Gates and Melinda Gates are no longer married.
The billionaire and his now ex-wife Melinda Gates are officially divorced after 27 years of marriage. They also share three adult children.
A judge finalized the split earlier today (Aug. 2), according to TMZ.
Melinda Gates first filed for divorce back in May. Since she and Bill Gates didn’t have a prenup, she could walk away with $65 billion (which is half of his $130 billion worth). They released a joint statement after the filing.
She’s already well on her way after Bill Gates gave her $2 billion in stocks on the same day she actually filed for the split. The next day, he handed over 25 million shares of Mexican Coca-Cola.
While he and Melinda Gates appeared to have ended things peacefully, his family is said to be over the allegations that he hit on multiple women, including a few who worked for his Microsoft company.
In May, he admitted to having an affair with a Microsoft worker.
A rep for Bill Gates said,
“There was an affair almost 20 years ago which ended amicably.”
The admission came after Microsoft Corp. board members hired a third-party law firm to investigate a relationship with the worker (that those close to the matter said was inappropriate) in 2019, according to Wall Street Journal. The woman claimed in a letter that she and Bill Gates had a sexual relationship for years. Last year, the board advised Bill Gates to step down from his position on the board. A spokesperson from Microsoft explained,
“Microsoft received a concern in the latter half of 2019 that Bill Gates sought to initiate an intimate relationship with a company employee in the year 2000. A committee of the Board reviewed the concern, aided by an outside law firm to conduct a thorough investigation. Throughout the investigation, Microsoft provided extensive support to the employee who raised the concern.”
They added that his
“decision to transition off the board was in no way related to this matter. In fact, he had expressed an interest in spending more time on his philanthropy starting several years earlier.”
Bill Gates said in March 2020 that he was stepping down from the board to
“dedicate more time to philanthropic priorities including global health and development, education, and my increasing engagement in tackling climate change.”
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