Forty American billionaires and their families Wednesday pledged to provide half of their fortune to charity, as part of an initiative launched by the two richest of them, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.The CNN founder Ted Turner, the New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, co-founder Larry Ellison of Oracle or the director George Lucas are among wealthy individuals who have been convinced by the founder of Microsoft and the famous financier to head of the holding company Berkshire Hathaway.
"We've only just begun, but already the response is tremendous," said Mr. Buffett, though organizers said the pledges are not synonyms for the time of contractual obligation.
MM. Gates and Buffett had announced in mid-June this initiative to convince their peers millionaires and billionaires to be generous. According to Forbes magazine, the two men sitting in second and third place in the ranking of richest people in the world.
Mr. Gates has a fortune estimated at 53 billion dollars. He recently lost the status of richest man in the world for the benefit of Mexican telecom giant Carlos Slim, with 53.5 billion.
Mr. Buffett, 79, who has a fortune estimated at $ 47 billion, has promised to get rid of 99% of its capital to donate to philanthropic works in his lifetime or after his death.
The most generous new donors are "self-made men" started from scratch, like Mr. Bloomberg, and have a billion dollars or more. A smaller number of them are from wealthy families, such as David Rockefeller.
The American billionaires, in disgrace with the view from the financial crisis of 2008 could somewhat regild their image through this initiative.
But beyond this purely related to the image, their donations could lead to huge inflows of funds for charitable organizations.
MM. Gates and Buffett, in fact, intend not to stop there and get pledges from all 400 U.S. billionaires listed.
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