Gates Charity Trust Pledged To Divest From Fossil Fuels In 2019; In 2024, $254 Invested In Chevron, Shell, BP

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The Gates Foundation Trust holds hundreds of millions of dollars in fossil fuel extractors despite Bill Gates’ claims of divestment made in 2019. End-of-year filings reveal that in 2024 the trust invested $254m in companies that extract fossil fuels such as Chevron, BP and Shell. This was a nine-year record and up 21% from 2016, Guardian analysis found. Adjusting for inflation, it was the highest amount since 2019.

Bill Gates, the tech billionaire and founder of Microsoft, was ranked by Forbes as the world’s wealthiest man for most of the years between 1995 and 2017. In 2000, he and his then wife, Melinda, set up the Gates Foundation, which is now the third largest charitable foundation in the world. It uses its resources for a range of causes including public health, poverty reduction, education and climate adaptation. Divestment first became an issue for Gates in 2015. At the time, a global campaign by religious figures, climate activists, students and other charities called for large foundations to divest from fossil fuels.

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In a 2015 paper, Gates called for more government investment in carbon-free energy sources, arguing that it was not right to “simply let the market guide [investment]” because it searched for shorter-term, guaranteed wins, namely fossil fuel companies. But since 2015, the value of the trust’s investments in several fossil fuel companies has increased. Its Glencore holdings increased from $5.7m in 2015 to $14.1m in 2024, its BP holdings increased from $8.7m to $24.2m, and its Occidental Petroleum holdings rose from $23,529 to $7.9m, among others. Some of this growth can be accounted for by an increase in stock price rather than active investment.

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Other than Inpex, the trust has millions invested in BP and Equinor, which both faced shareholder rebellions in 2025 due to allegations of greenwashing. Millions more are invested in Occidental Petroleum, which bragged about captured carbon dioxide only to pump it into oilfields to enhance their output. In 2023, the companies in which the Gates trust had invested were responsible for more emissions collectively than Russia, Japan and Germany combined. And in the most recent year of financial results, which goes to the end of 2024, the trust reached a 10-year record, at the same time as Gates’ most recent public statements supported a “strategic pivot” away from focusing on cutting emissions and towards preventing poverty and suffering.

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[NotHardly]

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